Diaconía spreads 31 installations across 29 Metro stations for a week to highlight situations of residential exclusion that do not appear in official counts. The initiative includes eight testimonies and will run until November.
The social entity Diaconía has launched the campaign '(in)Visible' in Madrid to raise awareness of hidden homelessness, a phenomenon that includes people who do not sleep on the street but lack stable housing. The initiative, as reported by Noticias para Municipios, will be disseminated for a week across 31 installations located in 29 Metro stations in Madrid and will remain accessible throughout the year on the organisation's website.
Among the stations where the campaign can be seen are Callao, Ópera, Banco de España, Colón, Goya, Tribunal, Bilbao, Moncloa, Chamartín, Estación del Arte, and Méndez Álvaro. The project is funded by the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030.
The campaign features eight testimonies in written format and video podcast. One of them is from María, a Venezuelan teacher who arrived in Spain with her husband and two children. The family shared a flat with another fourteen people and, even after both found jobs, they still could not rent their own home.
We were grateful to have a roof. But a room is not always a home
This is how María, one of the protagonists of the initiative, expressed it. The project coordinator, Vilma Hidalgo, explained that the security of a home disappears both on the street and in rooms at risk of being lost at any moment, in overcrowded flats, or in homes where one lives in fear.
Traditional counts, Hidalgo added, inform about how many people sleep on the street but do not account for how many live with the constant fear of losing the room they occupy.
The campaign will continue on October 2 with the First Meeting on Hidden Homelessness, in an online format, and will conclude on November 3 with a photographic exhibition by Eloy Jodar at the Ateneo de Madrid.
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