There are 421 people, most live in terminal 4 of the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport. More than half are registered in Madrid and almost four out of ten say they have a job. This is the radiography of the Syntch that inhabit the largest airport in Spain.
The data exposes them The country who has had access to an internal document of AENA in which the situation in which the hundreds of people who night night after night In their facilities and that have attracted the focus of today in recent days and weeks but also, unintentionally, they have become a policy throwing weapon between administrations.
The ASAE union data (Aena Enaire union alternative) raised the figure to half a thousand people in February. According to your calculations, 500 people were exceeded Those who spent the night at the airport.
For days, local, regional and state administrations indicate on the contrary as the cause of the situation in which hundreds of homeless who are calculated that they live in the airport. Some and others They are pointed out as guilty of not finding a solution to the problem.
And on the debate of the Madrid airport floats the shadow of what was lived in Barcelona. El Prat airport has been found in the same situation for years and gradually the homeless number living in these facilities has been reduced although always taking into account that specific rebounds occur.
This is how administrations have worked.
Coordination to reduce the problem
Although Madrid and Barcelona They are not the only airports Where this situation occurs, the Catalan airport is known for having launched various performances over the years to try to alleviate the problem.
In one of the last counts 108 people were counted living in him El Prat Airport. As in Madrid, some of them spend the day at the facilities while others leave during the day and return at night to shelter from the cold.
The situation, however, seems to have improved in recent years although measures have been taken for more than a decade. In Europa Press They point out that the first time it was acted to reduce the non -roof number at the airport was in 2011 when the “then Department of Social Welfare and families constituted a working group with the Barcelona City Council that initiated the social intervention and accompaniment at the El Prat airport.”
The situation remained stable but in 2022 the problems returned and the game of competencies and administrations began. The avant -garde He explained in a report that a non -counted number of people lived in one of the airport parking lots, which was being renovated. The voices that expressed themselves in the report made it clear that the administrations had turned their backs.
And that year, in 2022, the Generalitat stopped financing these assistance teams and in 2023 the Barcelona City Council did. Then it was alleged that the Consistory of the city of Condal did not have the Competencies To act at the airport. In 2024 no administration did his job at the AENA facilities.
That neglect, they point out in Europa Press It caused a rebound in the people who did life. At the end of 2023, 177 homeless people were counted. It has not been until 2025 when the administrations have launched an operation to reduce the without roof number at the airport facilities and have tried to redirect them to the Social Services circuit.
That social services circuit depends on the municipalities. Lluís Torrens, who was Secretary of Social Affairs and Families of the Generalitathe has assured The country that the competitions are very clear and that giving support to homeless people is the responsibility of the municipalities. In the Prat, the City Council of Barcelona and that of El Prat had to coordinate to give a way out to these people since the emergency services of El Prat could not support due to lack of means.
There, Aena and the municipalities managed to clarify the powers with the intervention of the Generalitat. Torrens, responsible for the actions, defends that it is the consistors who have to put the means but that if necessary the Regional Administrations They are the ones that have to intervene to coordinate the efforts and even provide economic resources to the municipalities if they do not have the necessary means or facilities to absorb people who leave the airport.
As for Aena, in February a first drill was launched to try to accompany the homeless people to the social services circuit and try to shelter them outside the airport. It was AENA’s security employees who, together with the police, asked the homeless to leave the facilities. In a joint work, they were explained that they would have to leave the facilities to clean the environment.
In Diari ara The march of these people was narrated. In the eviction no confrontation was detected but these people were explained that they could not re -enter the facilities if it was not with a boarding card to take a plane. The device remained a few days and since then groups of social teams are maintained to serve these people. Since then, the without roof number spent at the airport has been reduced to about 50 individuals.
At the moment, in Madrid Aena has made the same decision to ask for the boarding card to those who try to access the airport but are only being carried out in the lower intensity time. That is, at night.
The Madrid City Council has described this decision as A “patch”. Manuela Bergerot, spokesman for more Madrid in the opposition, points out the measure as “an arbitrary prohibition to people who do not have a boarding card to be able to pass to the airport or who do not seem companions. It is the entrance door to institutional racism.”
From the Community of Madrid they point out as main guilty To Aena and the central government. “The Government of Spain, in this case Aena, what he does is that he will not let them in, he throws them and so they take off the problem. They do not let them in and all to the street. Is that an effective policy by AENA and the Ministry of Transportation? We will have to give a solution to all those people who are human beings and each one has a specific responsibility in this regard,” said Jorge Rodrigo a few days ago Jorge Rodrig eldiario.es.
For his part, Francisco Martín, delegate of the Government in Madrid has indicated in statements taken by The world that it has been asking the Madrid City Council for a long time to fulfill its responsibility and not leave the most vulnerable people in our city. “
Photo | Roberto Arias
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