Successful annual gathering in Barcelona for homelessness campaign

Our 10 European End Street Homelessness partner cities came together recently in Barcelona to share our collective vision of a world without street homelessness.

After a few years break – in which our campaign has been delivered exclusively online – this was a chance for housing advocates from across cities in our growing campaign to share best practice on tackling housing injustice.

We were hosted by Arrels Fundació – who have been part of the campaign since its pilot phase. Their inspirational work in the capital of Catalonia is a beacon for others to follow – particularly their use of high-quality data and evidence of homelessness in the city, their involvement of thousands of community volunteers, and more recently shift towards growing their social enterprise workshops.

The Annual Gathering of Cities theme this year was “Working in partnership with municipalities” – an integral yet challenging part of every housing advocate’s work.

We heard from Barcelona Municipality themselves, in particular their work in the face of the growing financialisaton of housing in the major tourist city while also facing the pressures of migration.

As a campaign we also explored what it means to retain your position fighting for the right to housing, while also retaining constructive relationships with municipalities – especially in countries where the housing context is more challenging and housing rights more under threat.