I’ve been sleeping outside for 20 years": the journey of Ahmed, a Moroccan lost in the streets of Barcelona

In the Clot neighborhood, under the arcades of Joana Tomàs park, Ahmed tries to protect himself from the icy humidity of the Barcelona night. Arrived from Tétouan nearly thirty years ago, he has spent the last twenty years without a roof, trapped in the spiral of drug addiction. His testimony, collected during a large "social sweep" organized by the Arrels Foundation, illustrates an increasingly dark reality: precariousness is settling in durably and massively, reports El Mundo.

The assessment is alarming: 1,982 people counted sleeping under the stars, nearly 600 more than in 2023. The Sants-Montjuïc district recorded the largest increase (+134%), becoming the new epicenter of this misery, followed by Eixample and Ciutat Vella. This phenomenon of displacement towards the margins of the city and industrial areas testifies to a saturation of city centers and an increasing invisibility of these populations.

A crisis with multiple facets and a political response under pressure

The causes of this surge are multiple: a precarious labor market, a housing crisis, but also the difficulties related to the regularization of immigrants, as pointed out by Beatriz Fernández, director of the Arrels Foundation. In Catalonia, 1.3 million people are in a situation of social exclusion. Faced with the emergency, Mayor Jaume Collboni (PSC) calls for a "national agreement" and points to the saturation of public services, estimating that 60% of the homeless do not have access to municipal facilities.

Despite a municipal budget up 89% over ten years (51 million euros in 2025) and 2,800 accommodation places, the system is cracking at all levels. The opposition, united from Junts to PP through ERC, has imposed an emergency action plan with 60 million euros, denouncing the failure of current policies. In response, the city council has set up a "City Table" bringing together experts and associations to try to provide coordinated responses, while calling on the regional government of the Generalitat to take its responsibilities in this case that now goes far beyond the local framework.