Barcelona City Council offers accommodation to the FP student who was sleeping on the street
Mohammed accepts the emergency solution and says he will have to drop out of school if he becomes homeless again
BarcelonaBarcelona City Council has offered accommodation in the Mohammed, the 22-year-old vocational training student who lived on the streets. According to Catalunya Ràdio and confirmed by municipal sources to ARA, the council offered him this emergency solution and the young man will be able to access it within a couple of days. "I will accept because it is better than nothing, better than being on the street," said the student in statements to the public radio, where he made it clear that if he becomes homeless again, he will have to leave his studies.
Sources from the council assure that the measure of offering him accommodation in a centre for homeless people is provisional. Meanwhile, the council is considering "other services and benefits that allow him to achieve sufficient autonomy to develop his life project." These actions, according to sources from the council, will also be coordinated with social services in Hospitalet, since it is where the young man's support network is located.
Mohammed's case came to light after his teachers at the Llobregat Institute in Hospitalet alerted them of his situation. "When he is assigned a computer, he says he is afraid it will be stolen because he lives on the street [...]. He had been living under a bridge for a week," explained Victor Langreo, one of the teachers, to ARA. A few weeks ago, the teachers opened a fund to pay for the room he now sleeps in. But in a few days he must leave it.
Mohammed arrived in Catalonia in 2022 from Morocco. He managed to reach Turkey alone, and as he explained at the centre where he studies, he made the journey "on foot" to Catalonia; after living in a caravan and ending up on the street. Langreo complained that there had been no official communication from the administration to give the student, who is registered in Barcelona, a way out.
According to sources from the centre, he had a visit with the social services of the Catalan capital's council in March, which was finally brought forward to this Tuesday, when the council offered him a hostel. "The City Council is working to offer Mohammed a comprehensive solution so that he can continue not only with his training process, but also develop a personal and autonomous life process," municipal sources said in recent days.