Barcelona City Council will help homeless people find sublet rooms.

BarcelonaBarcelona City Council will help find a sublet room to people who live on the streets or in what is classified as substandard housing, which includes everything from a shack to a caravan, a squatted warehouse or a residential center. The aim of the Social Services area headed by Commissioner Sonia Fuertes is to end the paternalism that usually guides policies for this group so that, if they express the desire to improve their situation, they can be the ones who can choose where to live.

In the last 15 years, the City Council has doubled the budget to combat homelessness, care places have increased by 70% in a decade, and despite this effort, the census of people surviving on the streets has also doubled. In addition, the number of people has also grown population that, without any other alternative, must live in these substandard housing.

The city council acknowledges the impossibility of these people finding decent, safe housing on their own and will create a unit of 16 professionals to provide this "support" in their search for sublet rooms. The idea stems from the City Council's commission to the NGOs Hogar Sí and Provivienda to provide housing for 200 homeless people who had been on the streets for less than three months. The longer a person is homeless or in unsafe accommodation, the harder it is to get out.

The new unit is part of the revamped Homelessness Guidance and Counseling Service (SOASS), which merges two services to change the way the group's problems are addressed. This is reflected in the strategic framework for addressing homelessness in Barcelona, current until 2027, which was presented to the municipal commission this Tuesday. From now on, the goal is to focus social action on the individual, who will change services as their situation changes. The ultimate goal is for them to be served by universal basic social services for the entire population and abandon those specific to homelessness. Therefore, the number of street educators, responsible for detecting, identifying, and creating connections with the homeless they encounter, has been strengthened. It is not always easy to get them to accept help., due to distrust in the system or other factors.

Work plans

Those who enter this rehousing process will have to commit to individualized work plans and follow-up care from social workers. Educators will be on the lookout for offers of sublet rooms, a modality that is growing exponentially in the city at the same rate as the evictions of sublet renters. In fact, these already account for 40% of the total number of people assisted for homelessness. This plan is based on the prevailing philosophy in Europe: first housing, that is, the idea that once a person finds decent housing, they can begin to rebuild their lives, look for work, and achieve emotional stability. On the contrary, when they lose their apartment, the affected person plummets.

The city council is aware that the city's biggest problem is the lack of affordable housing due to the unstoppable rise in rents. The structural lack of public housing also means that the waiting lists for public housing are insufficient for new applicants. Furthermore, when a situation of social vulnerability due to long-term unemployment or illness, for example, is compounded by administrative irregularities, the chances of finding a secure roof are practically impossible. The number of places—public and private—for temporary and emergency accommodation are as high as they are, and the waiting lists are growing.

Reletting is the easiest and most dignified way to relocate these people and get them out of the woods, although the method is also a source of abuse and scams by profiteers who want to take advantage of their vulnerability.