Living and sleeping rough in public spaces constitute a huge risk to one’s health, social well-being, and security. Everyone, including people experiencing homelessness, would prefer adequate and safe housing if it were available and affordable.

Laws, regulations and administrative measures penalizing homelessness are being introduced during an economic crisis that has resulted in record levels of unemployment and poverty, driving entire families to live on the streets. Such measures are often motivated by the desire to reduce the visibility of homelessness and poverty and hide them as social issues. The criminalization of begging and migration are part of the same trend. A conscious policy of exclusion is applied to mask the unwillingness of the state to assume its responsibilities for upholding the human rights of all of its residents.