homelessness
They sleep on the ground or on a seat in the waiting area, among the passengers; they use the public washrooms to clean themselves and live however they can. There used to be just one or two, but now about twenty homeless people are living in Malaga Airport
05.02.09 - 17:52 -
ORIGINS. Most of these homeless people are from countries in the European Union / A. SALAS
The safest place in the world
During the day, they camouflage themselves among the passengers. Their trolleys, containing their few belongings, mix with those of tourists and travellers. At ten o clock at night, though, when the bustle of arrivals and departures dies down, these tenants of the airport terminal cease to be invisible. These are the nocturnal inhabitants of Malaga Airport, who coexist in Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 together with the night workers and the few passengers who are awaiting flights in the early hours of the morning.
They wander among the empty corridors, rummage in the rubbish bins to find something to eat and in the early hours they head towards their favourite corners for sleeping. Some of them have been there for months and have become just another part of the airport. Any quiet corner of the waiting areas serves as a bed for these people. Their stories are reminiscent of the Tom Hanks film “The Terminal”, with the difference that the star of the film was trapped inside the airport and these are there by choice.
The airport offers them warmth in the cold of winter, a roof when it rains, safety from the dangers of the streets, lavatories and running water. For this reason, the airport has become a popular refuge for the homeless and in recent months their numbers have increased considerably.
Difficult coexistence
The airport employees know them now, and are familiar with their stories. “The Italian woman is here, so’s the grandad, the Rumanian woman, María...we’ve given them all nicknames”, says one of the cleaners at the cafés in the departure lounge in Terminal 2. “Little by little you learn about their lives. For example, there is a Rumanian girl who has been here for more than two months and they say she went mad because her boyfriend left her; there’s another one who we call The Artist because he walks around and argues with the fire extinguishers, and he moves his hand as if he were doodling”, says one of the airport’s security guards.
“Most of them are immigrants and some seem to have mental problems”, comments another cleaner. “We have never had so many people sleeping here at night; we have now counted 20 who are living in the airport”, continues the same employee. None of the workers we spoke to wanted to give their names. The existence of these homeless people is a well-known secret, but no member of staff wanted to be seen to discuss the matter openly.
Another employee says that she usually comes across one or two people sleeping in the corridors. “In the end you feel affection for them because you see them every day. We workers used to bring them food and even clothing because they were just people who had problems, but it’s different now because the new ones are more aggressive” she adds.
The coexistence between these homeless people and the workers is becoming more difficult as the number of those seeking shelter increases. The cleaners are most affected. “This can’t go on. We’re afraid to do the night shift, because when we go to clean the lavatories we don’t know what we’re going to find, and they often confront us”, says one cleaner. As she speaks, one of the homeless people who was wandering aimlessly around the area suddenly comes running towards her and tries to pull her hair. “Do you see? This is dangerous because half of these people are out of their minds and one day something awful is going to happen” she says as she returns to her seat after jumping up to avoid being attacked by the tramp.
Conflict and theft
Another cleaner says that some of the homeless people purposely make the airport terminal dirty to irritate the cleaners. “When they see that you are close to them, they throw rubbish on the floor in front of you. They think it’s funny because they know we have to clean up after them, and on many occasions in the lavatories we come across really unpleasant situations. We have found some people showering themselves in the washbasins, and they don’t care if passengers come in, they have no shame”, he insists.
But that’s not all. Some shopkeepers and restaurant staff say they have been robbed on more than one occasion. “They take advantage of there being a lot of people at the bar to steal whatever they can from the counter”, says the manager of one of the bars. Those responsible for airport security say that passengers have also been robbed. “They wait until somebody becomes sleepy or is not paying attention, and they try to steal their bag or case; the problem is that the passengers are on their way somewhere. None of them has time to make an official report, they can’t do anything about it”, they stress.
The latest incident was last Thursday night. One of these inhabitants of the airport tried to take several bottles of alcohol from one of the shops in Terminal 2. The assistant spotted him and remonstrated with him. The man then became violent and threw a stone at her, and the police had to intervene. Luckily, the employee was unhurt.
There are also frequent threats against staff. “We used to be sympathetic to these people, but the new ones are a different kettle of fish; I have been threatened with violence several times because I have reminded them that they can’t smoke in the airport, they fight among themselves and they even set fire to a mattress on one occasion “, comments another employee, although the AENA Airport Authority says it is doing everything possible to stop such incidents occurring. “It seems that some of them form groups and they are more aggressive, because the ones who are on their own don’t cause such problems; they just sleep here, and that’s all. This is like a five star hotel, as far as they are concerned”, continues the spokesman.
Stories but no luggage
As always, the truth depends on who is telling it. On the terrace of Terminal 2 we find some of the homeless people. Yaga is from England, with a guitar on his back and the hope that somebody will discover him so he can record a CD; in the meantime, he earns money by singing the greatest hits of other artists. “We don’t bother anybody here, and we live on what the passengers give us or what we find in the rubbish bins, but we don’t steal”, he insists when we refer to complaints made by shopkeepers inside the terminal.
Leonardo is Polish and came to the Costa del Sol to find work but after several months with no success he had no choice but to live rough. “The airport is safe, because on the streets they steal everything you have and you can’t sleep because you’re afraid someone is going to attack you”, he says. Tedy’s case is different. He has spent six months living on the street with a friend, and insists that he is a free spirit and that he likes living outdoors with no ties. The youngest member of the group is Argo. He is Estonian and says he doesn’t have the money to go home.
With a shared carton of wine, drag ends of cigarettes picked out of the ashtrays at the airport entrance and the music of Yaga in the background, these homeless people pass the time together in the terminal. They have become friends, and, speaking in several languages at the same time, they tell the stories of their lives and the circumstances which have led them to end up living in the airport.
The homeless know that they can stay in the airport without being thrown out. “This is a public area, so nobody can make them leave. The only thing we can do is ring the police if there is a fight, or ring the social services if there is a health problem”, explains Aena.
Problems with no solution?
Social workers at the Municipal Refuge Centre in Malaga are aware that many homeless people are living at the airport. “We often go there, but if these people don’t want to come with us we can’t force them to do so; sometimes they do come, we clean them up and we give them clean clothes, but in a couple of days they go back to the airport again”,says one of the managers. “They know our facilities exist and they know that they can make use of them, but they don’t want to be fixed to a timetable or talk to a social worker to find a solution to their problem, so they go back out onto the street”, she says.
Staff at the airport are worried that the situation will become out of control. “We have been told that more than 40 tramps are living in Terminal 4 in Madrid; we don’t know if that’s true, because we can’t check for ourselves, but what is worrying is that the numbers here keep increasing and it is causing a real problem for security and sanitation. It also gives a really bad impression of an airport which is used by thousands of tourists from all over the world every day”, insists one of the building’s private security guards.
“I don’t know what the solution is, but they have to find one because working here is a risk to our health; some of these people have nits and are suffering from illnesses, and they are using the same lavatories as staff and passengers”, says a ground stewardess at one of the departure gates.
Back on the terrace of Terminal 1, Yaga is playing ‘No woman, no cry’, by Bob Marley. All these homeless people insist that they intend to stay at the airport as long as they can. They are refugees in a society to which they didn’t want to adapt, but they have been unable to find anywhere else which suits them.
