Madrid and airport operator Aena agree to carry out census of homeless people who sleep in Barajas Airport

The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and the president of Spain's airport operator (Aena), Maurici Lucena, have initiated a new stage of the conversation regarding the hundreds of homeless people who sleep in Barajas Airport. The issue has turned into a humanitarian crisis that requires urgent action, not continuous disagreements between the two parties. There is light at the end of the tunnel now, after Almeida and Lucena held a meeting on Thursday, in an attempt to "overcome differences" and put the disagreements behind.

The first step is the now agreed implementation of an independent third sector, which will carry out a census of all the homeless people who live in Barajas. This "identification process" will be carried out by private consultancy Fresno, which works with NGOs, with the financial sponsorship of Aena. The deadline for the release of the census is June.

The census will make it possible to understand the unique situation of every person who spends the night at the airport, in order to provide them with "individualised" assistance. What is known at the moment is that these individuals come from various backgrounds and there are different reasons behind their vulnerability.

There are workers who cannot pay their rent; people with mental health problems or addiction; people who simply prefer to sleep at the airport rather than on the street or in a municipal shelter; and foreigners who have been stranded when their visas expired.

Almeida and Lucena have agreed to hold technical meetings every week and "sit down and talk" whenever discrepancies arise, before airing them in public, which is what they have been doing until now. Although they appeared before the media separately, both agreed on the "cordiality" with which the meeting had taken place.

Almeida told Lucena that, apart from the census, the city council will continue to deploy its social intervention teams in Barajas with the idea of reaching more vulnerable people, because so far they have identified 105 people but only 14 have agreed to move to the municipal shelters. The mayor acknowledged the importance of establishing trust and a continuous relationship with them, in order to slowly transfer them to other locations, where they will receive assistance. He highlighted that the city council "does not have the capacity to force anyone to leave the airport".

Lucena thanked Almeida for the attention and even quoted Casablanca by saying: "I feel that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." He stressed the importance of the two institutions working together to offer a solution to homelessness.

The president of Aena said that the new control services at Barajas will continue to carry out their night shifts, which means that from 9pm to 5am only people with boarding passes can enter. The aim is to prevent the situation from worsening.

Since controls began on Wednesday night, the security guards stationed at the access gates to the four terminals of Barajas prevented the entry of 150 homeless people. Another 170 people did manage to spend the night inside the facilities, either because they did not leave the airport or because they decided to enter before 9pm. "The operation ran smoothly and there were no incidents," said security director García.

The NGOs believe that people in such vulnerable situations should be given a housing alternative and medium-term solutions by the social services, with the support of educators, doctors and psychologists.