Winter in the city can be deceptive. Sometimes the sun comes up in the morning, warming the city streets all day, and the concrete and tarmac remains warm for a period after the sun has set. But then it gets cold, and as the night creeps on, it gets colder. This may not be something we have to think about much, as we sleep in warm beds in warm houses, but for many people in Malaga city, the cold is something they think about all the time. They feel it in their bones, trying desperately to stay warm as they huddle in cardboard boxes in bank entrances or under any available space that happens to be covered. They use whatever is at hand: old newspapers, tattered blankets or scraps of material found in city-street rubbish containers.

Call them what we will; homeless people, vagabonds or tramps, but whatever word we use, they remain ordinary people in almost every respect, except that they have nowhere to spend the night. Most passers-by pass by without a second glance at them. To a large extent, they have become invisible people to most of the rest of society.

But not all of it. They are very visible to the workers of the Municipal Shelter, who offer them warm food, adequate clothing, washing facilities and a roof for the night.

The workers are beginning their nightly round of the city streets. They know it has rained during the late evening and many of the homeless are wet, so they come prepared with thermos flasks of hot coffee, pastries, blankets, gloves, torches and a first-aid kit, in case it should be necessary. We get into the vehicle used to transport the homeless, and inside is Rosa Martínez, director of the shelter, who sets out the route for the night. “Normally we know the places they sleep in, but on rainy nights they tend to disperse and it is harder to find then,” she says.

The round begins at ten. Miguel Molina is the van driver for the night, and he has been doing this job for the past 12 years. He and María Ortigosa, the social worker, are the veterans of the team, and tonight they are accompanied by José Antonio Almagro, a nurse, who has been working with the team for two years, making him the newcomer to the group. But newcomers learn fast in this job, because they are faced with cruel lessons in reality night after night.

We head for Plaza Eduardo Maldonado Leal, in Huelin, where a group of residents have reported the presence of some vagabonds who have been tearing up park benches to make shelters from the rain. When we arrive we find nobody there, but a short drive along a narrow road leads us to a man sleeping beneath a bank entrance. We stop the van and the team approaches him. “We have to be very careful about how we approach them, because one never knows how they will react. Sometimes they can be violent, especially if they are drunk or have taken drugs,” says Rosa.

First client

“Good night to you. How are you?” says Rosa as she goes through the outer door of the bank. Inside is an older man sitting on a plastic chair with a walking stick in his hand. He looks somewhat surprised to see her, although as it turns out, he already knows her. His name is Juan Gómez, and he is a regular user of the shelter. He was not there tonight because he got tired along the way and his feet began to hurt, he tells her, so he slipped into the bank entrance instead. “So now you’ll come with us to the shelter?” María asks.

Juan gets into the van without losing grip of his walking stick. In spite of his condition as a homeless person, he is an elegant old man. “I have no family,” he says. “I haven’t seen or heard from my children in years, but that’s alright, because they don’t love me anymore, now that I am not rich anymore.” He assures us that life in the streets is hard. He likes to be alone, although he gets frightened at times, he admits. “One day I was sleeping in a bank entrance and I had to get out quickly, because a young man, who was drunk, came in and started shouting at me. When I went to collect my stuff and leave, I saw he had tossed it all out into the street,” says Juan. When we reach the shelter, the staff take his name and particulars and sit him down to a hot meal. He has been assigned a bed.

Any place is good for the night, as long as it provides some shelter. Bank entrances are an excellent choice, most not needing a card to open the outer door and well protected from the weather. Underneath a large tree will do, if it is not raining, or in any deep doorway. Enrique Campos, an elderly user of the shelter, has a particular liking for industrial estates, and heads out to them whenever he can. Sometimes finding him can be difficult, but the shelter team usually know where exactly to find him.

We find him tonight on a street in the La Estrella industrial estate. He is surrounded by rubbish bags. The team membes put latex gloves on and take care not to cut their hands on broken glass. Enrique appears not to take any interest in them. He is huddled in a blanket amid the rubbish bags, and has no intention of leaving. “We cannot force anybody to come with us,” says Rosa. “We can only offer them the opportunity of a bed for the night.” Miguel asks Enrique if he would consider coming along with them, while he and José Antonio attempt to lift the old man out of the rubbish. The smell is almost unbearable, a mixture of urine and household rubbish. María takes out her secret weapon against foul smells, which is a Vicks vapour rub. “We know all the tricks by now,” she laughs.

A good shower

Enrique has now decided that it might be a good idea, now that he is awake, to spend the night in a warm bed. He goes with us. Rosa calls the shelter to tell them to set aside a bed. As soon as we arrive, Enrique takes a shower.

We take a call from the Local Police at 11.30, which brings us to the Plaza de la Trinidad. There we find an old man well known to the team members. He is Antonio Caño, who had attacked three workers in the refuge centre that very morning. Antonio is almost blind, but as soon as he recognises Rosa he tells her he has been to the doctor, who told him that he would need an operation on his eyes. He stands on the street corner with his suitcase, and agrees to come along to the shelter. Rosa is firm about the rules. Will he try to attack anybody else once there, she asks. Antonio makes his excuses and promises to behave. But the alcohol has affected his brain, Antonio explains. The old man used to be a member of the Spanish Legion, and has been living in the streets for many years. “He is one of the regulars, coming and going all the time. I think when we don’t see him for a long time, it is probably because he is in prison,” María says.

The shelter workers have seen it all. “One grows accustomed to it after time,” says Rosa. One never knows what one might find in the streets at night. But we carry on, because we feel as if they are now part of our families.”

Drink and drugs

Most of those who live in the streets have problems of alcohol or drug addiction, or mental problems. Seeking a solution for them does not always work out. “Many of them do not want to live anywhere else,” says José Antonio Almagro while we search the beach at Huelin. Some of the regular clients like to spend the night there.

There are now many more immigrants in the streets than before, making up about half the total number of homeless people in Malaga city. The air on the beach is colder than in the city centre. We come across Andrés, a German who claims to be building a boat. He lives in a wooden box he made opposite the fishing boats. Rosa asks about a fight he had recently with a friend. “There is no code of honour on the streets,” she tells us. “They steal from each other when they can.”

Back in the city again, we come across the first woman of the night. Her name is Susana and she sits in a wheelchair because it is more profitable to beg in. “There are far fewer women living rough, because they have a better social network,” says María.

At the bus station, we find a dozen or so people sleeping on cardboard boxes. The team offers them hot drinks and pastries. This is a favourite spot for homeless people, offering the shelter from the rain they need. Some of them have dogs. “They like dogs, because they need some companionship and provide protection if they need it,” says María. It is now two in the morning and we return to the shelter. We have done what we can, knowing there are still many others out there. Life on the streets is not easy.

Happy and sad, the anecdotes abound

There are many stories to be told by the workers of the Municipal Shelter. Some are amusing, some outright hilarious and some very sad. There have even been stories of love affairs in this unlikely setting. Rosa Martínez, director of the shelter, and María Ortigosa, a social worker, have fond memories of two users of the shelter who fell in love and got married. “We went to the wedding as witnesses, and between us all here, we collected enough money to pay for a hotel for the night for them, so they would have some good memories of their wedding night,” says Rosa. “It was a beautiful love story, at least while it lasted. Unfortunately, he ended up beating her and they separated in the end,” María tells us.

They also recall the story of another client who had a serious drug problem. “Her name was Ana María and she was quite a funny woman. We used to have great laughs together,” María says. “But whatever we did, she would always go back to taking drugs, and there was simply no way we could stop her. She used to say that the best way was not to think about drugs, and to do that she decided to buy a book of crossword puzzles and sit by the door doing them all day. She would spend hours doing crossword puzzles. But even that was not enough to keep her from her addiction. In the end she left the book behind her and disappeared for some days. She was in a terrible state when she came back,” María tells us. Her story ended, as usual in such cases, with her death from an overdose.

Wine bill

Another story is of the woman who had an addiction to wine, but would always leave the bill in the bars for the shelter to pay. She finally conquered her addiction, however, and wrote to them afterwards from her new home in Murcia to tell them of her new life. Some of the stories they tell have a happy ending.

Some of the former clients remain friends for life. Such is the case of Antonia, who has now settled in the Canary Islands. “She saves money throughout the year to come back to Malaga every year during Holy Week. But she always runs out of money while here and comes to us seeking a little help,” says Rosa.

On another occasion, the shelter staff had to bring an old man named Rosendo to court, to have him declared incapable and so gain entry to a mental hospital. “The problem was that on this particular day he was at his most lucid, and explained to the judge that he was sick of trying to get away from the shelter staff, and that we always managed to find him, and we would always wash him even though he hated the water. The judge found it hard to believe he had mental problems,” the shelter staff tell us.

One of the happiest times of the year for the staff is during the Malaga fair, when they bring their homeless people along.

For more information go to: Centro Municipal de Acogida Calle Donoso Cortés, 2, Malaga. Telephone number: 952 040 272.