Buenos Aires airport turns into unofficial homeless shelter

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — At the start of the long Easter weekend, the airport in Argentina’s capital is eerily quiet before dawn, hours before it will fill with travelers. About 100 people who sleep inside the facility are getting ready to start their day.

One of them is Ángel Gómez, who has been living in the Jorge Newbery International Airport for two years and has seen how the number of people joining him has soared.

“After the pandemic, this became a total invasion,” Gómez said early Thursday as he sat next to a sign advertising the Perito Moreno glacier, an iconic tourist attraction in the Patagonia region.

As passengers and staff start arriving early in the morning, dozens of people are still sleeping, some on chairs and others on the floor. Some have blankets, but many sleep directly on the floor, strewn across the airport with their few possessions close by.

The airport, known colloquially as Aeroparque, has practically become a homeless shelter at night. Once passengers start arriving, some of the overnighters head off to spend the day at soup kitchens, though others hang around the airport grounds begging for change at traffic lights and some stay seated in chairs blending in with the travelers.

https://apnews.com/article/argentina-aeroparque-airport-homeless-buenos-aires-727ccc7963a383916cc123d82ce90c6f

[Judi Lynn]

1. Here's hoping they will continue to be allowed to find shelter out of the elements there

without being harassed by the police or terrorized by lunatics in the population.

Their lives are certainly painful already.