Slum dwelling became a consolidated reality in the Barcelona of the 60s, with nuclei that became true neighborhoods like Montjuïc or El Somorrostro, but it seemed to have been left behind in the 90s with the major urban development projects that the Olympic Games brought. Instead, homelessness was never completely eradicated, but it was linked to situations of extreme marginality or addiction. Now, with the arrival of new contingents of immigrant population (just as happened in the 60s), both homelessness and a new form of slum dwelling are proliferating again and pose an enormous political challenge to a society that, while it has prospered economically greatly in the last 50 years, maintains significant social differences.

He leaves the tent, which by midday must already be an oven inside. “No problems, no police,” he says, looking from side to side. From the dozen tents in this corner of the ronda del Litoral, between L'Hospitalet and Barcelona, no one peeks out when they hear a strange voice. At the door of each one, there are trainers and pool flip-flops that reveal that the owners have preferred to remain oblivious to what is happening outside and avoid problems. They are afraid that making themselves visible will force them to move again. This group has settled in a vacant lot between roads, having come from evictions at the airport, the Ciutadella, and the Zona Franca. “They are looking for the periphery,” illustrate those from the organizations, who point out that they opt to go more unnoticed by the police and also by the neighbors.

Between Girona and Salt, in a half-finished farmhouse, about twenty African boys, originally from countries like Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali, are living in hardship. The house has no electricity or water. It also lacks doors and windows in the openings, and inside, there is only the structure of the main walls. The young men have improvised compartments with cardboard and fabrics where they sleep on mattresses, blankets, and camping tents. In the middle of the building, there is a staircase without walls or a railing, with a very dangerous fall into the void, especially at night. They cook in a room with a wood fire on the ground or with gas stoves, shower with jugs from the well, and have no toilets.

Manuel Heredia gets up every day at 5 in the morning to go to work. He washes his face and teeth, ties up his hair, takes the train, and at 6:20 am he enters the company door. Eight hours later, he showers and does the journey in reverse. Until the next day. It's the same routine for so many workers, but Heredia's particularity is that he lives on the street, an exceptionality that is becoming increasingly normalized, social entities warn. The FOESSA report from Cáritas estimates that in Catalonia 1.4 million workers are poor.

It has been more than four years since the death of Munir and Jéssica in the shantytown of Montcada i Reixac. In this time, however, the situation of the settlement has not changed at all and its inhabitants continue to live in poverty between the Besòs river and the BV-5001 road, invisible to the administrations despite the tragedy. That day in January 2022 it was cold, the couple lit a fire to warm themselves and died of asphyxiation inside their makeshift home, leaving three children orphaned. The arrival of a new summer does not improve the neighbors' outlook, as with the rising temperatures they have to seek refuge outside the shack—built with sheet metal or materials not very resistant—when the sun beats down the hardest and makes the air inside unbreathable. This is the case of a man resting in the shade without a shirt. He does not want to give his name, nor have his photograph taken and be interviewed, he is tired of reporting the situation and angry about the lack of help they have received: "They died right next door and everything remains the same; I don't want to talk to you because it will be useless".

Music could not be missed, and even less so the piano that accompanied him for so many days to bid farewell to Dragomir Atanazov, a man who managed to escape the ugliness and sadness of living on the street and transformed himself when he played the black and white keys. Atanazov, elDrago, was born in 1972 in Bulgaria and died prematurely this April in Barcelona, no longer as a homeless person but in the home of a foster family. In an emotional ceremony at the workshop-store La Troballa, which Arrels Fundació has on Ample street in the Catalan capital, where he had spent so many hours working, six pianists wanted to pay tribute to the street pianist who played at the Hospital Clínic and Sant Pau and left more than one speechless.

A la intempèrie, which means exposed and without anything, is the first entry, the initiatory concept, of a singular and prized dictionary that was released last week. Last Monday evening, at the Sala Sagarra of the Ateneu Barcelonès, the first Dictionary of homelessness in the Catalan language was pioneered. Driven by those who know most about precise words and accurate definitions —this common institution of Catalan which is the Termcat— and by those who know most about the reality of surviving on the street in bulk and in detail —the Arrels Foundation—. Double rigor to recover the exact name of things and to be able to Having outlined the what and how, we need to specify the when. The Catalan political cycle has meant that we have seen the dictionary printed first —which has an online version— rather than the bill on transitional and urgent measures to tackle homelessness being approved in Parliament, which we have been waiting for for so many years. The reverse order was planned, so that the dictionary would also be inspired by the spirit and letter of the law. But successive election calls have caused the parliamentary process to lapse time and again and, as we know, it’s back to square one after each election. I suppose the dictionary, prematurely and in advance, hits the nail on the head. The concept "institutional factor, well, what do you know, refers in the dictionary to the "risk factor related to policies and the functioning of public administration and its bodies in relation to tackling homelessness". And the volume, which is full of essential explanatory notes, specifies it with street clarity: "The inadequacy of public budgets, the lack of coordination of social services, the procedures and bureaucracy of public administration, or the lack of planning in deinstitutionalisation are examples of institutional factors".The socio-public linguistic cooperation in the dictionary's drafting also tells of a great team that, rejecting the fashion for Anglicisms, enriches our lexicon, sharpens Catalan, and invites uninterrupted solidarity. The team starts with Jordi Garcia—a volunteer from Arrels who had the original idea, embracing "the transformative power of inhabiting words"—and includes Guillem Fernández—one of the most lucid Catalan and European voices in the fight to eradicate homelessness—to arrive at the scalpel-like precision of Termcat's terminologists. And more: another volunteer—Marisol Alafont—always insisted on key words, asking if they had already "filed" them. For years, she has collected them on the street: frustration, despair, suffering, loneliness, fragility, hopelessness. Ultimately, the director of the Arrels Foundation, the good Bea Fernández, clarified from the outset that she was talking about a dictionary that, without needing any narrative, dissects an entire panorama "of broken lives, of failing systems, of violated rights".A dictionary, in current times, can be a lucid peaceful weapon of massive reconstruction. This one is, and perhaps there is no struggle more urgent and contemporary than the daily battle for language. A terminology against ambiguity, with conscious and consistent words, in times of reductionisms, binarisms, and polarizations. Because language has always been double-edged: it humanizes or brutalizes, transforms or reproduces, generates empathy or provokes rejection. Because words —every word we use— can lead us to simplisticness or complexity, to stigmatization or dignification, to bringing us closer or moving us apart. Not long ago, the philosopher Santiago Alba Rico recalled a recent scene on the metro, when a man entered and announced: "I will not ask you for money. I will only ask you to lift your heads from your mobile phones and say good morning to me." The philosopher remembered that it is easy to deal with abstractions, when the difficult thing is to do so when the needs of those around us become painfully concrete. Like that very concrete thing of avoiding eye contact and looking elsewhere.

Last March, social third sector entities once again carried out a In these meetings, the ombudsman has detailed his proposal to tackle homelessness. Sources indicate that it is a pilot plan project called Pla Zero Carrer (Zero Street Plan) which, initially, should be implemented in two neighborhoods – one in Barcelona and one in another city, which is expected to be L'Hospitalet de Llobregat – and which sets the ambitious goal of halving the number of people sleeping on the street in just over a year. To achieve this, it calls for the administration, entities, and the private sector to work together, sharing information and objectives so that most people who are currently homeless can move forward with their own projects.

There are realities that make us uncomfortable. Not because they are new, but because they remind us of what we prefer not to see. Homelessness is one of them. It is not an urban anecdote or an inevitable landscape; it is the symptom of a collective failure, of a society that has normalized that there are people who have nowhere to sleep. And, even more serious, that has begun to design spaces so that they cannot be there.

The Badalona City Council has installed about twenty concrete blocks under the C-31 highway bridge, precisely where for a few days dozens of homeless people lived in tents, most of them from the former B9 Institute. On March 24, the council led by the popular Xavier García Albiol ordered the eviction of the settlement, justifying it as a temporary measure for the need to clean and sanitize the area, which had been occupied since the end of December last year. However, he stated that once the toxic effect of the products used had passed, it would be allowed to be occupied again. Now, however, a municipal brigade has completely blocked access to the site, which is being guarded by an Urban Guard patrol, according to ACN. lived in tents for days, most of them from the former B9 Institute. On March 24, the council led by the popular Xavier García Albiol ordered the eviction of the settlement, justifying it as a temporary measure for the need to clean and sanitize the area, occupied since the end of December last year. However, he stated that once the toxic effect of the products used had passed, it would be allowed to be occupied again. Now, however, a municipal brigade has completely blocked access to the site, which is being guarded by an Urban Guard patrol, according to ACN.

Five people living on the streets have died in Badalona this year. According to the Badalona Acull platform, which confirmed the information to ARA, the latest victim was a homeless man. Badalona DailyA 60-year-old man, a resident of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, was found dead on February 15th inside the car where he had been living in the Puigfred neighborhood. According to the platform, which brings together a dozen social organizations in Badalona, ​​the man had been living in a vehicle since December, parked at number 51 Otger Street, in the Puigfred neighborhood, near the Santa Coloma municipal boundary. The only information the city council, led by Mayor Xavier García Albiol, has provided about the case is that he lived in the neighborhood and that there was a restraining order against him from a woman residing in the city. This latest death brings the total to six, including Raúl, Luis, Jordi, and a fourth man who was also living on the streets but has not yet been identified. Just three days ago, the residents of Badalona remembered them in a tribute ceremony in the Plaza de la Vila, where they also took the opportunity to demand the reopening of the municipal shelter. Can Bofí Vell, which closed in April in 2024, leaving the 45 people who were staying there homeless and the city without any emergency residential services. Since then, six homeless people have died in Badalona.

A rough noise, the whisper of two voices, or a sliver of music at night, when the building is deserted, puts the neighbors on alert. The real shock comes in broad daylight, when they climb the steps from the fifth to the sixth and final floor of the staircase. There, right in front of the armored door leading to the rooftop, lies a tiny mattress boxed in and a small backpack left by the previous night's occasional residents before leaving while the building still remains silent. At night, they will return quietly, trying to go unnoticed. The scene is in a building in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, ​​where residents have decided in a meeting to close off the final section of the staircase with a gate. Between fear and unease, the residents of the fifth floor—who wish to remain anonymous—explain that it isn't always the same people hiding on the top floor, and they suspect that someone must have a key to the front door. In the few months this situation has lasted, there has never been any conflict. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) confirm that there are no complaints or noteworthy incidents related to these situations. In fact, beyond living on the streets in squares or tents, homelessness is basically an invisible phenomenon, and in most cases, there is coexistence. Neighbors even tend to "take care" of the people sleeping there, bringing them "hot soup or blankets." "A community is created," says Raquel Rico, a homelessness specialist with the Girona City Council and president of the Girona branch of the College of Social Educators of Catalonia (CEESC), who emphasizes the need to "humanize" homeless people. "They feel like garbage, and a simple 'Good morning!' gives them life," the expert states.

It's the first morning of Ramadan, and about thirty young Algerians are more worried about what will happen tomorrow, Thursday, when they'll be evicted again to clean the space than about how they'll spend the hours until they break their religious fast. They are among the 175 people who were evicted last week. evicted from a vacant lot on 2nd Street in the Free Trade Zone which, according to the Barcelona City Council, was infested with rats. The group then dispersed through streets and other areas of the industrial park, the Ronda Litoral ring road, and Montjuïc mountain, far from residential buildings. On Tuesday, officers from the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police) informed them that a cleaning crew would arrive on Thursday at 7:00 a.m. to remove anything they hadn't collected. They would only be allowed to set up their tent encampment again after 8:00 p.m. and would have to leave by 8:00 a.m.

How many more people have to die on the streets before we take the rise in homelessness seriously? We've been talking about it more than usual for the past few weeks. The five deaths of people sleeping on the streets of Catalan cities during a cold snap, and the evident increase in the problem in recent times, are filling pages and airtime on television and radio. But we're outraged at how we've normalized thousands of people spending their nights and days rough, while we continue to shift the focus from housing to emergency situations and demand that social services lead actions that, strictly speaking, fall under the purview of civil protection.

The Badalona City Council has requested permission from the Catalan government to evict the settlement located under the C-31 bridge. This is where they settled. Dozens of people after the eviction from the former B9 InstituteA few meters away. According to the City Council, there are no longer any former residents of the B9 under the highway bridge, as they have all been relocated, but other homeless people remain. The affected land belongs to the highway company and, therefore, the Generalitat (Catalan government) is the owner. The City Council assures that the relocation of the people from the B9 was completed on Wednesday and that they will now take action to eliminate this settlement. The council is citing the civic ordinance that expressly prohibits "camping without municipal authorization." The camping ban was also the reason given by the City Council in the first hours after the eviction in mid-December, when some occupants of the B9 tried to settle in the square directly in front of the old high school. Once they were evicted from there, they ended up settling under the C-31 highway. The City Council estimates that there are currently about twenty people under the bridge and that social services are monitoring the situation. The city council maintains that some of these people have arrived from other cities. They believe there has been a "pull factor" effect, after this location became the central hub for social services aid to the homeless following the B9 case.

This Saturday morning marks just two weeks since we woke up, first and foremost, to the news of the bombings of Caracas—nearly 100 deaths, unpunished and already forgotten. Then, with radios on and mobile phones constantly connected, like those days when everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing, we heard the live broadcast of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. So much could have happened, and it's still surprising how little actually did. The next day, that is, the cartel The name Los Soles disappeared from the prosecution's indictment. Only oil and ideology remained. putsch From Trump. Circle the tale. And yes: it's only been 15 days since the Donroe Doctrine—and two centuries since the Monroe Doctrine. And yet, it already seems like an eternity—both the fifteen days and the two centuries. On the tightrope of the cannibalistic raffle of the new year, the thick doubt of who will be next to receive: Greenland, Iran, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Gaza again, or Ukraine again. And the EU playing the fool. 2026 has begun with the jumble of confusion, the farewell to yesterday's world, and teetering along several cliffs whose destination we'll see, because if we already know how the year has started, the important thing is to get involved so that it doesn't end as some intend. Pornographically, there is this brutal declaration from Lieutenant Stephen Miller, both inside and outside the walls, which has blown everything up: "The real world is governed by force and power: these are the iron laws of the world." The brutality being justified is everywhere: Delta Force is now the global equivalent of what ICE is at home. The same cruelty, inside and out, but with resistance both within and outside the country. And with Renee Nicole Good killed by an agent who had fought in Iraq. When Trump kills equally at home and abroad.

Barcelona will increase the number of places available for homeless people during the colder months: from the current 100 to 178, and will reinforce its outreach teams with twelve new members. This was announced by the Deputy Mayor for Social Rights, Raquel Gil, during the first meeting of the City Roundtable against Homelessness. The measure aims to "size" current municipal services to respond to the increase in homeless citizens in the Catalan capital.

"In theory, it's an obligation for city councils, but, as we've seen in Badalona, ​​some choose not to." Political scientist Alba Lanau, professor and researcher at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), laments that in practice, local administrations can get away with failing to fulfill their obligations to assist the homeless. The law establishes the minimum standards that the administration must guarantee, but there are hardly any precedents of non-compliance that have reached the courts. Added to this is the difficulty for people in extremely vulnerable situations to want to—and be able to—initiate legal proceedings, and voices from specialized social organizations admit that the lack of resources has also ultimately weighed heavily in dismissing legal action whenever it has been considered.

The housing crisis has its darkest face in homelessness. Ignoring it is not a solution. Letting them die of cold is a disgrace. This is what we, as a society, are doing.

"A man who slept on the street died here yesterday. No one will claim him. 'Just another one,' the newspapers will say tomorrow. A man died here yesterday, and I'll never know his name. It doesn't matter, because he could have brought yours and mine. He died of cold, hunger, or perhaps sadness." The writing is stuck to the ground, right under the bench where Eusebio used to spend hours sitting. This Tuesday, the 57-year-old man was found dead. He was sitting. "He'd been sitting there for too long," Ahmed says, still shaken. He's known him for four years, from the streets. "He was quiet, he hadn't had an easy life," he repeats. He came from Serbia and had been homeless for years. Arrels Fundació had known him since 2021. He died during the coldest night in years in Barcelona. "I run so I don't freeze," Ahmed says.