"Homeless people can't wait any longer": the third sector urges institutions to act

BarcelonaThird-sector social organizations issued a warning on Tuesday, demanding that government agencies take immediate action to address the needs of the homeless. "They can't wait any longer," declared Xavier Trabado, president of the Third Sector Social Roundtable, at a joint press conference with the Catalan Social Action Entities (Ecas) platform, the San Juan de Dios Association of Catalonia, Caritas Catalonia, and the Catalan Red Cross. They called on the government to increase the budget allocated to this issue and to urgently approve the law to combat homelessness, which has been stalled since 2022. The third sector expressed its gratitude that the debate is now underway within government bodies, but cautioned against creating working groups and committees. "We know what needs to be done, and now we need to move forward with action," Trabado emphasized. According to the organizations, the two most urgent actions are a significant increase in funding allocated to combat homelessness and the long-awaited passage of a law that guarantees the rights of people experiencing homelessness, specifies the obligations of all levels of government, and ensures the necessary resources to support them. In the short term, then, the first challenge is the budget. The draft budget presented by the Catalan government last week, which still needs the support of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) to pass, allocates 30 million euros to address homelessness, a figure the organizations consider "insufficient." They argue that this year's allocation should reach 100 million euros and that by 2030 this amount should have quadrupled.

Separately, the organizations have urged parliamentary groups to approve a bill that was introduced in the Catalan Parliament in 2022, but which lapsed due to the elections and has had to restart the process in 2025. The director of San Juan de Dios Social Services in Barcelona, ​​Salvador Maneu, stressed that "what has been most urgently needed is the processing of a law that, he said, guarantees rights for homeless people, generates territorial equity, and establishes a stable framework for actions and funding."

Warning about the collapse of the social safety net

The third sector has also warned that the [relevant regulations] are being violated. plan to combat homelessness The program, approved by the Catalan government in 2022 when Violant Cervera was Minister of Social Rights, aimed to reduce the time a person spends on the streets or in emergency shelters before finding permanent housing. This Tuesday, Bea Fernández, director of Arrels and a member of the board of directors of Ecas, lamented that not all municipalities are fulfilling their obligations or implementing the program consistently. According to her, the target for social housing has not been met, nor have all available resources been utilized. Furthermore, one of the main problems that prompted the plan remains unresolved: the lack of sufficient data on homelessness in each municipality. The organizations emphasized that this phenomenon is not limited to people sleeping on the streets but also includes those living in overcrowded conditions, substandard housing, or without a rental agreement.

In this sense, the vice president of Cáritas in Catalonia, Martí Batllori, has warned that the fall of the social shield The bill passed in Congress last week will worsen this situation and lead to many families being evicted and at risk of homelessness. "It's pushing us into a very complex situation," he warned.