AP PHOTOS: Virus accentuates isolation of Spain’s homeless

While Spanish authorities tell public that staying home is best way to beat coronavirus pandemic, some people are staying out because home has come to mean streets of Mrid and Barcelona.

Spain, which ranks fourth worldwide among countries with most virus cases, is under a government-imposed lockdown that has closed stores, emptied office buildings and left cities largely deserted, day and night.

In typically bustling Barcelona, figures with boxes and blankets, mattresses or tents, punctuate eerie emptiness. bare sidewalks and doorways of shuttered shops where y bed down during a national health emergency accentuate isolation of city’s homeless population, of about 1,000.

“It is as if re has been a nuclear explosion and (people) are all sheltering in bunker. Only us, homeless, are left outside,” says 36-year-old Gana, who has lived on street for more than eight years and uses only one name.

He is taking vant of unprecedented absence of activity to make doorstep of a designer furniture store, which has been closed for days, place where he lies on a cardboard box covered by a single blanket for night.

Many of city’s day centers for homeless and soup kitchens have closed or reduced ir hours during lockdown.

“I thought I h seen everything in 12 years sleeping in street, but . This silence all day scares me ... more than virus itself,” says Riccardo, 32.

He shares, with four or homeless people of different nationalities, floor of one of wide shopping arces that overlook Las Ramblas, pedestrian avenue that is a Barcelona landmark. only ise is from motorcycles of municipal police.

Authorities are scrambling to get as many homeless people off streets without cramming m into a group shelter, where risk of getting infected with virus could be even greater.

sprawling IFEMA exhibition center in Mrid has been converted into a makeshift shelter with 150 beds. In Barcelona, an old school was turned into a temporary shelter for 56 people, and officials promise to make more beds available soon.

Those sleeping rough in Barcelona agree on one thing: panhandling for money or food is pointless w because re’s body around to give m anything.

(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)