Caritas Spain helped 44,475 people with housing problems in 2025

Caritas Spain, the Catholic Church's main charity in the country and a counterpart to Catholic Charities in the United States, assisted 44,475 people with serious housing problems during 2025, a 3.8 percent increase over the previous year. For the Day for the Homeless, marked on October 25, the confederation has prepared a campaign under the slogan "Un hogar, un lugar al que pertenecer" ("A home, a place to belong"). The organization says the campaign aims to broaden public understanding of a problem that goes far beyond the image of people sleeping on the street.

Most of the planned events will take place on October 22, when homeless people will take to squares and streets in many Spanish cities to make themselves visible and to demand respect for their rights in their own words. The events will also include a reading of a text written jointly by people who are living or have lived in that situation and by those who support them day to day.

For the fourth year in a row, the campaign is built around people who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness. Their accounts are intended to show a reality that the organization says involves the systematic violation of their rights. María Santos, who runs the homelessness program at Caritas Spain, said the situation amounts to the breaking of the most basic bond any person has: a home. Losing that space, Santos said, means losing the family that sustains a person, the network that protects them and the certainty of having a place in the world where they can live with dignity and to the full.

The organization's statement includes the testimony of Libertad, who receives support from Caritas Córdoba in southern Spain and who stressed the importance of being treated humanely and with dignity. Libertad said she wanted "to have a home so I can have my children with me."