"I've never been so cold. We're suffering": sleeping outdoors with the thermometer below zero.

Barcelona / Badalona"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.

"How many more people will have to die before we show a little humanity?" continues the text on the bench, written anonymously. In Barcelona, five homeless people have died in the last five weeks. In less than 24 hours, on Three Kings' Day, the street was the scene of the deaths of Eusebio and from another homeless person in Badalona. The cause of death is still unknown; the autopsy will reveal it. In the Badalona case, the man was 55 years old and had been sleeping in a parking garage entrance for two weeks. A neighbor tried to bring him a cup of broth and found he wasn't breathing, a common occurrence among people sleeping on the streets who try to look out for one another.

"Hey, are you okay?" Karnail asks a man sleeping next to him on a bench in Barcelona's Raval neighborhood. He shakes him and finally answers, opening his eyes slightly. He says nothing and closes them again. "I don't know him, but we should check on each other," Karnail remarks. He is 48 years old and came from India 25 years ago. He sleeps in the entrance of the Barcelona Stock Exchange. He's wearing seven sweaters. "I've never been so cold," he says.

"I've never been so cold," Saes repeats. He's heating coffee on a small stove inside a tent under the Badalona highway bridge, not far from the building that until recently was his home, the occupied B9 high school. He's wearing five sweaters and an anorak. He admits that he hasn't been able to sleep more than three hours a night in recent nights. He wakes up with frozen arms and says he can't move them. When it's daytime, he stretches out in the sun so they can slowly thaw. "We're suffering," he laments. "We're tired of talking to the press because nobody is paying attention to us. They've only offered us a shelter far from here," he adds. Everyone finds a way to make a living, however precarious, and his is made from the scrap metal they collect in certain spots around Badalona, ​​always ending up at the same businesses. In return, he receives money that he sends, in many cases, back to his home country. Their families are far away, but in B9 they found a new one that is now hard to separate from when they have to look for other places to sleep on their own.

Four shops away, Ambar folds the four blankets and duvet that keep him warm each night. He has a razor, rolling papers, blankets, a few cigarette butts, and some water. Why doesn't he go to the sports center the City Council opened? It was the first day, and there weren't even any mattresses. Besides, they have to leave their belongings to chance. "I've never been so cold," says Ambar in perfect Catalan. He's from Gambia and learned the language in Manlleu, where he worked in construction until he became unemployed and ended up in a small room in building B9. Some occupants have been relocated to beds offered by organizations or to the homes of volunteers. But the reality is that there are still more than fifty people living under a bridge. When it's not the cold, it's a car, a tram, or the raindrops. "It's hard to sleep," insists Ambar, who keeps saying, "I just want to work." Now he collects scrap metal and little else.

Nights below zero

The last few days in Catalonia have been particularly frigid. In Barcelona, the Fabra Observatory recorded a low of -1.6°C, the lowest since 2018. The 2.5°C in the Raval neighborhood is also the lowest since 2023. Across the Catalan capital, it hasn't been this cold since February 2023. "And to think we're used to the African climate, we're not used to the African climate." Abu also sleeps no more than three hours a night. He wears three socks.

From the bridge where those evicted from the B9 housing complex are living in squalor, in the parking lot where the homeless man who died was also living, there are just over three kilometers. This Tuesday morning, Jaume Ventura, from the Justícia i Pau (Justice and Peace) organization and Badalona Acull (Badalona in Closer), received a call from a resident of Torras i Bages street in the same town. He said there was a man sleeping in the garage doorway. He recommended she bring him some broth while they waited for social services. She heated it, put it in a container, and went downstairs, but the man was dead. A day later, the cardboard boxes, blankets, and two candles that remember him are still there, while neighbors come and go from a parking lot that continues its daily routine.

Two streets away lives Antonio, taking advantage of a section of the roof that juts out from the Torner municipal market, sheltering him from the rain but not the cold. "But I'm not too cold," says the 63-year-old. The radio blares, and neighbors and local organizations bring him food, which he protects and hides with blankets. He wears a hat, has a beard he trims once a month, and a face marked with wrinkles and scars. He doesn't sleep on a mattress because otherwise, the city services would take it away every day. And he doesn't go to the sports center either: "I'm afraid they'll steal what little I have." He's been living on the street for "many" years. He's just another face in the neighborhood, and everyone greets him. But he didn't know the man who died this Tuesday just a few meters away.

Badalona City Council's social services had been monitoring the deceased homeless man and had made contact "months ago." However, the man reportedly refused municipal assistance, according to city hall sources. Amidst the ongoing debate about managing homelessness in the city, the City Council also announced that Operation Cold will continue at the La Colina pavilion at least through Wednesday and for "a few more days" to provide temporary shelter to people experiencing homelessness. Eight people slept there Tuesday night.

Resources in Barcelona

Additionally, around forty people spent the night in designated overnight shelters at municipal facilities in Barcelona. Mayor Jaume Collboni explained that 123 people were contacted last night and offered accommodation. Of these, 38 men and 5 women accepted. Collboni pointed out that while the shelter is offered, participation is voluntary, and some people decline, "with all the risks that entails." The city council activated the alert phase of its cold weather operation on Tuesday due to the forecast of temperatures reaching 0°C overnight, although organizations had requested activation the day before when it was snowing across much of Catalonia. Meanwhile, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) party called for a change to the protocol to allow for intervention before the temperature drop becomes so significant.

Sílvia Torralba, from Arrels Fundació, explains that these days, more than ever, their clients are asking for blankets and jackets. However, the foundation insists that homelessness shouldn't only be a concern when it's cold, since hundreds of people sleep on the streets every day. In fact, the Arrels team knew Eusebio well, the man who died Tuesday night in Plaça del Poeta Boscà, in the heart of Barceloneta. He had recently gone to shower at their center. Now he's no longer sitting on the bench, but life in the square goes on: terraces are quite crowded because of the cold, and the heaters are blasting.