Working and living on the street, the new normal

Cornellà de LlobregatManuel Heredia gets up every day at 5 in the morning to go to work. He washes his face and teeth, ties up his hair, takes the train, and at 6:20 AM he enters the company's door. Eight hours later, he showers and makes the journey in reverse. Until the next day. It is the same routine as so many workers, but Heredia's peculiarity is that he lives on the street, an exceptionality that is becoming increasingly normalized, social entities warn. The FOESSA report from Cáritas estimates that in Catalonia 1.4 million workers are poor.

In Heredia's case, just over a year ago a "cumulus of circumstances" left him on the street from one day to the next: he became unemployed and the partner with whom he lived kicked him out of the apartment, and with the meager benefit he couldn't even afford a room. "The first day was hard and I gave in to drinking, a stupid decision I haven't repeated," he explains, and states that today he is "calm, with a clear head." Now, even though he says he has a decent salary, he can't even think about renting an apartment, however small. "I'm saving almost everything I earn, overtime, everything to be able to pay the two months' deposit," he points out.

It is midnight on the last Monday of May and a group of Red Cross volunteers in Cornellà arrive at the spot where Heredia sleeps every day, in the city center. "So much so that at first I didn't want you and now I wait for you," he says, as he receives the group, rejoining from the cardboard that protects him from the ground. The four volunteers ask him how he is, what he needs, and they chat, as they have done with the rest of the people they accompany on a night route that is repeated twice a week, "whether it's Christmas or Saint John, rain or shine".

Precisely, it was a volunteer from the organization, Emilio, who proposed a job to Heredia in Sant Andreu de la Barca. "I was overjoyed. I have always been a very active person and immediately said I wanted to work, wherever and whatever," he indicates. He started on January 12 and is now a permanent employee. He is aware that "luck" has smiled on him to be able to re-enter the labor market, given his 59 years and his homelessness.

Always vigilant

Social organizations warn that every day on the street shortens life and worsens the physical and mental health of people living without a dignified roof. Heredia explains that he has learned to “sleep with half his brain disconnected and the other half alert”, because what he fears most is being robbed again while he sleeps or being physically assaulted. For this reason, his sister keeps everything he earns, and he leaves his work clothes in the locker. On this night, he has very little on the cardboard. Before working, he says he followed the minimum hygiene habits at a public fountain and, to avoid being seen, he would get up before sunrise. And when he had a little money, he used the laundromat. “The street has not taken away my dignity as a person, I have always tried to stay clean and now I take even better care of myself,” he states, and recounts how, as a child, he was struck by seeing an old man, all dirty, rummaging through the trash. The image still comes to his mind.

One of the things he tries not to neglect is his diet. He has discovered ready-to-eat meals from supermarkets that don't require cooking and mentions which ones are the most economical and the tastiest, because they are products that, although a bit more expensive, make a meal for him. “For six euros you have a complete salad,” he points out, and notes that he buys fruit above all. He doesn't drink or have any addiction other than tobacco, a vice he says has been impossible for him to quit, like playing the lottery. “Sometimes I think maybe I'll win a big prize and the next day I can afford a flat.” For now, however, with no prize in sight, the only thing he has is his “savings,” with the prospect that by the end of the year he might have house keys.