The Government will allocate 30 million euros to the town councils to deal with homelessness

BarcelonaWorking but not being able to pay rent and having to sleep on the street is a growing reality in Catalonia. The rise of precariousness means that there are more and more people who are forced to live without a roof over their heads, to the point that the profile of those affected has changed and now there are workers who cannot even afford to pay for a room. In addition, other social problems must be added, such as addictions and mental health pathologies, which have a direct impact on the increase in homelessness across the country. This Friday, the Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Raúl Moreno, announced that the Catalan executive will allocate 30 million euros –double what is currently invested– so that municipalities can deal with it.

Moreno explained this after the Institutional Roundtable for Addressing Homelessness, which took place this Friday at the Can Batlló site in Barcelona. Although this allocation means doubling the amount allocated so far, the municipalities and the Ombudsman of Catalonia consider that the commitment falls short. On one hand, the ombudswoman, Esther Giménez-Salinas, has asked the Government to allocate around 0.15% of the Generalitat's budget, that is, a minimum of 73 million euros. On the other hand, the Barcelona City Council has stated that they allocate 50 million euros –one million euros per week– to this problem, but, according to sources familiar with the meeting who informed ARA, the municipalities are demanding a larger investment than the one announced by the Government.

In this sense, the same sources estimate that 242 million euros from other administrations would be needed to be able to respond to the reality of homelessness in Barcelona. Regarding social entities, the president of the Table of Entities of the Third Social Sector of Catalonia, Xavier Trabado, considered that the resources allocated so far to homelessness are "absolutely insufficient" and argued that it would be necessary to start with an endowment of 100 million euros to address the phenomenon with guarantees throughout Catalonia. According to Trabado, this amount should allow all municipalities to have the necessary resources and avoid territories being left without the capacity to face the problem.

Likewise, Moreno defended that this item is added to the endowment that the department was already allocating to the municipalities through the program contract so that they can attend to people living on the street. "We are not starting from scratch; we are increasing resources," argued the minister, who claimed the policies promoted by both the municipalities and the Generalitat in recent years. The head of Social Rights explained that collaboration with the local world has been strengthened with 115 new professionals, that 70 basic areas have been reached, and that the funding allocated to addressing homelessness has been increased. Barcelona City Council thanked Moreno for taking on a challenge that, although it is a municipal responsibility, they believe must be assumed as a country.

During the meeting, Giménez-Salinas also presented a country agreement with 35 measures that sets the goal of ending homelessness on the street, in settlements, and shantytowns by 2035. The ombudswoman demanded that around 0.15% of the Generalitat's budget be allocated and that the endowment be budgetarily fixed and stable.

New profiles and no law

For a few years now, homelessness has ceased to be an urban phenomenon concentrated in the centers of large cities. In part, this is explained by the increase in the population sleeping on the streets. Also the profile is changing: they are no longer just vagrants but a rejuvenated population, young immigrants who have not been able to find an opportunity to regularize their situation, people with mental disorders... And even workers with steady jobs. Furthermore, there are increasingly more women, who often flee from sexist violence. According to data collected by the ombudsman in 2025 with information gathered from municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants throughout Catalonia and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), the population living on the street reaches 6,724 people, of whom 2,400 do so in settlements.

Beyond the budget, the pact includes other measures such as guaranteeing the registration of all people living outdoors and the exercise of all their rights, and also ensuring that minors are not evicted from their homes in cases of evictions. Another pillar of the agreement is to ensure a more homogeneous response throughout the territory and prevent care for homelessness from depending on the municipality where the person is located.

The document proposes that, before the end of 2027, the Generalitat should establish mandatory minimum services, such as soup kitchens, showers, day centers, overnight spaces, or street teams, and that municipalities should have local response plans in place before the first semester of 2028. The proposal also aims to prevent the lack of resources in one municipality from ending up displacing homeless people to neighboring towns. The text has been delivered to the institutions present at the Institutional Table and to third-sector entities, and the ombudswoman expects to have a response before October 23, when a new meeting is scheduled.

Giménez-Salinas has stated that the agreement is proposed as "a pact" that the signatory institutions must fulfill and has distanced it from the law against homelessness, under debate in Parliament since the previous legislature and the result of pressure from entities. This regulation provides that municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants should be equipped with daytime resources, shelters, or lockers, but it does not speak of housing. According to data collected by the ombudswoman, 46% of municipalities do not have a soup kitchen and 28% do not offer showers.