Buenos Aires – The Argentine government has ordered residents to stay in their homes until mid-April, but thousands of them have nowhere to go as their “home” is the street.
The homeless are among the few seen on the streets of the capital, Buenos Aires, since President Alberto Fernandez issued a mandatory home ritual order on March 20.
They sleep in public squares and at the entrances to bank buildings and convenience stores currently closed in the city center.
They say the municipality shelters are crowded and some have said that the police forcibly removed them from the places where they had lived for years.
A year ago, Richard Marcelo created a shelter on the street near the historic Obelisk Monument on the city’s vast 9th Street. “We are trying to cope with the situation as best we can,” said the 46-year-old Uruguayan, surrounded by cartons and covers, as he and his comrades slept. But for the homeless, there are worse things than the epidemic.
“What we fear is hunger, and we are not afraid of anything else, including Corona virus,” Marcelo said.
Emilio Sebastian Barcia, 28, is the latest in the latest wave of homeless people in Buenos Aires. He became on the streets just three months ago after losing his job as a cook.
“I was desperate, I was hungry and I met this group,” which provided him with a lifeline. “Now with everything that happens with the Corona virus, if I am left alone, I will die.”
The city authority says it has accelerated plans to move the displaced to temporary shelters in sports centers or hotels, which are equipped to relieve pressure on municipal shelters during the epidemic.
Official figures showed that 1,146 people were living in the streets of Buenos Aires in 2019.
According to statistics of social and political organizations, the number of displaced people in the capital has risen to more than 7,500 people in the past few months as a result of the economic crisis afflicting Argentina.
Currently, amid the high unemployment rate in Argentina, more than 35 percent of the population is below the poverty line, of whom 8 percent are in extreme poverty.
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