The airport of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires has become an informal homeless haven as numbers continue to rise due to poverty and inflation in the Latin American country.

When passengers and staff begin to arrive early in the morning, dozens of people are still asleep, some on chairs, others on the floor. Some go to spend the day in tits, while others loiter around the airport, begging for change.

“If I pay rent, I don’t eat. And if I pay for food, then I’m on the street, ”Roxana Silva, who has been living at the airport with her husband for two years, told The Associated Press.

Silva receives a government pension of about 45,000 pesos, equivalent to about US$213 at the official exchange rate and about half that amount on the black market. “I have nothing to live on,” complains Silva, who says she and her husband take turns sleeping so that someone always looks after their belongings.

The airport’s operating company, AA2000, says it has “no police power or authority to evict these people” but says it has a duty to ensure “non-discrimination in the use of airport facilities.”

Inflation is measured in three digits

More and more Argentines find themselves in Silva’s situation as inflation worsens, hitting an annualized rate of 102.5% in February. Although Argentina has been accustomed to double-digit inflation for years, this is the first time since 1991 that annual consumer price growth has reached triple digits.

Horacio Avila, head of an organization dedicated to helping the homeless, believes the number of homeless people in the Argentine capital has risen by 30 percent since 2019, when he and others conducted an unofficial count of 7,251 people in the city of about 3.1 million people. .

As the cost of living rises and purchasing power declines, more and more people have begun to look at the airport as a potential haven.

The Argentine government has tried in vain to contain rising prices, which have eroded the purchasing power and savings of citizens, reduced the country’s economic growth and limited the chances of the ruling party to stay in power in the next elections.

Inflation dominates the debate, causing frustration and anger among people as wages often do not match the value of goods, despite government measures to impose price ceilings and restrict grain exports to support the domestic market.

Source: AP, Reuters.