As my name or the cadence of my speech readily give away, I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela - right in the heart of the beautiful Caribbean, but also engulfed in one of the worst democratic and economic declines in history. 

I’ve been living in the UK for a decade, spending half of that time working to improve outcomes for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, through better use of evidence and data.  

A few weeks ago I attended the International Journal of Homelessness Conference, hosted in Santiago, Chile (thanks to financial support from the Citi Foundation). This brought together academics, practitioners, policymakers, and people with lived experience to discuss ideas and solutions. On a personal level, it gave me a unique opportunity to start bringing two worlds together: learning about homelessness, but this time in Latin America. 

During one of the sessions, an attendee asked about how I saw homelessness - and its policy and community responses - in Latin America, thinking from the perspective of a Latino living and working in the UK.

At that point, I couldn’t articulate my response as clearly as I would have wanted and have been pondering it since then.

This is, in part, a delayed attempt at both making sense of my experience in Chile and answering that question. ‍

A bit of context: poverty and inequality

As homelessness is a poverty issue, homelessness in Latin America must be understood in the context of the region’s socioeconomic position. 

Latin America has historically struggled with high poverty levels, but continues to make progress, even if slowly, in the reduction of poverty. According to the World Bank, 170 million people (c. 25%) were living in poverty in 2024. This is down from more than 38% in 2009, but the reduction had been much slower than in other regions. For example, East Asia started with poverty rates close to 70% in 2009 and has now caught up with those in Latin America. 

This also masks very stark differences between countries: whilst fewer than 7% are considered poor in Chile or Uruguay, more than half of the population in Guatemala (55%) or Honduras (52%) live below the poverty line. Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 per day, also affects more than 1 in 10 people in Latin America.

But poverty is only part of the picture. Latin America also remains one of the most unequal regions in the world. 

Using a common measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient (1), shows that Latin America is much more unequal. In Latin America, the index stood at 45 in 2021, much higher than in Europe (29 in 2023) or the UK (33 in 2023). Even some of the most egalitarian countries such as Peru and the Dominican Republic had much higher levels of inequality than the UK; whilst some of the most unequal - Brazil and Colombia - stand out as some of the most unequal countries on Earth.  

This matters because persistent inequality might compound experiences of poverty and social exclusion, for example by exacerbating barriers to education, employment, housing, healthcare and other needs. These can, in turn, make any experience of homelessness or deprivation more difficult to exit. ‍

Informal Employment ‍

Informal employment is also a distinctive trait in the region. Informal employment can include self-employment but also waged work that is not regulated by labour laws (e.g. working hours, contracts), taxes, or social protections (e.g. pensions, sick leave). More than half of the jobs in Latin America are in the informal economy, with rates of informality exceeding 70% in countries like Peru, and 80% in Guatemala and Bolivia.  

This leaves workers much more vulnerable to extreme poverty and homelessness in times of crises or negative shocks. 

In contrast, Europe and the UK have strongly regulated labour markets, with much lower informal employment rates. Whilst the gig economy and zero-hour contracts have grown in recent years, multiple governments across Europe are taking strides to extend employment protections to all workers.‍

Limited Social Programmes and Weak Redistribution

The single most substantial difference between Latin America and the UK is the effectiveness of social protection systems.

Latin American countries have some social programmes, but social programmes tend to be fragmented, less generous and less comprehensive than in the UK. These generally include access to free schooling and healthcare coverage, but often co-exist with large private provision - even for people living on relatively low incomes.

Some targeted programmes, such as Brazil’s Bolsa Família and Mexico’s Prospera, have helped reduce extreme poverty but fall well short of the long-term protection provided by European welfare states (2). 

No Latin American country can boast the extensive coverage of the NHS or the relatively generous benefits system (in line with the average of OECD countries) and historically, these benefits have favoured formal sector - more affluent - workers and leave informal workers without safety nets, despite representing more than half of the region’s workforce.

For social programmes in Latin America, taxation is the other side of a very small, copper-plated coin. Given the size of the informal economy and ineffective tax collection systems (for example, no direct deductions of income tax or National Insurance from your monthly paycheck), States in the region rely more heavily on indirect taxes like VAT, tariffs, or other taxes on commodities and raw materials (e.g. copper in Chile, oil in Venezuela) rather than direct income taxes. This means that instead of helping to reduce inequality, a relatively larger share of taxes is collected from those who are relatively poor, limiting the potential to redistribute income effectively. 

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High poverty and inequality mean more people are likely to experience difficult times. But, in my opinion, the first difference between the UK and Latin America lies in the combination of high informal employment and weak and ineffective social protections: these mean that a negative shock - sickness, the death of a parent, the loss of a job - can leave millions of people at a much more elevated risk of different expressions of poverty, including violence, displacement and homelessness.‍

Informal Housing

Walking (or usually driving) through most Latin American cities, there is a common sight: a small mountain or hill covered with countless brick-and-zinc structures with small rectangular windows - very closely stacked with each other - equally ingeniously and hazardously. These informal housing settlements, often known as barrios, are usually built by their residents to very minimal standards, with high levels of overcrowding and often lacking access to public services such as plumbing. Close to one in four people in Latin America live in barrios.

Barrios are a quintessential part of the urban landscape in Latin America, and a key element to understanding homelessness in the region. Although people living in barrios are not homeless by most common definitions, they lack many of the physical traits of a decent and secure home, and offer limited-to-none security of tenure, making residents vulnerable to eviction or displacement. Through this lens, people living in barrios could at least be considered to be sharing some of the challenges faced by people who are experiencing ‘hidden homelessness’.

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This is, for me, the second key difference between the UK and Latin America. The ability to build at least some type of housing means that even people living on very low incomes are not seen as experiencing homelessness, explaining why homelessness is often equated to rough sleeping both in society’s collective imagination and governments’ policy responses.‍

Migration

Mass internal migration from the countryside to the cities changed the urban landscape of Latin American cities, especially capital cities, with the emergence and rapid growth of barrios in the 20th century. A different mass exodus is reshaping the face of entire countries in the 21st century, including how we think about poverty, homelessness, social protection and everything in between.

Firstly, the large-scale movements transiting from Central America and North America via the US; and secondly, the more recent migration from Venezuela  - where I was born and raised - to neighbouring countries. Migrants have been driven by a combination of issues including economic instability, political turmoil and violence, but it is both the magnitude of these flows and the precarity of their economic conditions that have made migration one of the most significant challenges for the region. 

Central American Migration to North America

The Northern Triangle of Central America—comprising El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—has experienced substantial migration for several decades. As of 2021, approximately 3.8 million individuals from these countries resided in the United States, with Salvadorans accounting for 40%, Guatemalans 32%, Hondurans 21%, and Nicaraguans 7%. This significant migration flow has impacts on the US, but also on transit countries such as Mexico that grapple with their own migration challenges. 

Venezuelan Migration within Latin America

Venezuela has faced a severe economic and political crisis for over two decades. Since 2015, estimates suggest that over 7.5 million Venezuelans have fled the country. More Venezuelans have left the country than Syrians or Ukrainians have left theirs in the wake of extended wars. 

Many of these migrants have covered very long distances on foot, with meagre possessions, and have settled in other Latin American countries - particularly Colombia (more than 2.5 million), Peru (1.5 million), and Ecuador (500,000). Chile and Brazil also accommodated significant numbers, each hosting over 400,000 Venezuelans.

This is the third key difference between the UK and Latin America. Anyone working in homelessness in the UK would recognise the increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness, particularly rough sleeping, from countries like Eritrea, Somalia or Sudan. 

The sudden influx of Venezuelan migrants is on a completely different scale. The numbers are enormous. 

Colombia has a population of roughly 52m people - so roughly 4.8% of the population are Venezuelan migrants who arrived in less than a decade - most of them refugees. In contrast, the UK received more than 400,000 asylum applications in the last ten years with a population 16m larger (very roughly 0.6% of the population) and a GDP per person more than 7 times higher. 

If the UK, with less porous borders, much higher incomes, better public services, and a larger population, has contended with migration as one of its key policy priorities, you can imagine that the consequences of the Venezuelan migration crisis are palpable. Overcrowded shelters, informal settlements, and higher risks of exploitation and homelessness among migrants - as well as some of those living with low incomes in those countries. 

The response of the State‍

Internationally, the UK has some of the most progressive and generous laws and social programmes to prevent and relieve homelessness, as well as substantial resources to support their implementation. 

My understanding of homelessness policies in Latin America is comparatively very limited.  Intentionally smoothing substantial differences between countries in the interest of brevity and the boundaries of my own understanding, it is possible to say: 

1. Homelessness is not a policy priority in Latin American countries, and where some conversations have started, the State offers much more limited protections than in the UK. Many constitutions talk of decent housing as a human right, but practices - and especially funding - rarely follow those lofty words. 
2. Where support exists, it often focuses on offering temporary shelters that provide immediate relief for those living on the streets; and in some cases, support based on the ‘staircase model’ of progressive social and economic reintegration. Comparatively, there is very little being done to identify people at risk of experiencing homelessness and targeting support to prevent it.
3. Data is very scarce. Very few countries have information at the national level on the number of people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping - such as Mexico or Chile - and when they do, they started collecting this information very recently. In other places, data is only collected at the local level, such as in Buenos Aires; or by third-sector organisations. This relative lack of data means that it is much harder to formulate policies that effectively respond to these needs. 

The picture is much more nuanced but rather than doing a relatively poor job at summarising those differences, I invite you to have a look at the work being done by colleagues from CISCAL, a network of researchers working on homelessness in Latin America. At the Conference closure, they announced a Special Edition of the International Journal on Homelessness focussed on the region, to advance the scholarship and understanding of homelessness in Latin America and share those lessons across the globe. ‍

What the UK can learn from Latin America

Despite these structural challenges and stark differences with homelessness in the UK, I left with a sense of renewed optimism which I think I can summarise in a single word: 

Community. 

Let me explain why. 

On our last day at the Conference, we had the opportunity to visit local services and talk to staff and people experiencing homelessness. In my experience, these are often some of the most illuminating and enriching conversations I can have doing my job. 

Firstly, we visited a service that offers refuge and support to families fleeing domestic abuse. There we were greeted by Pamela, the head of the service; Carmen and Monica, who kept everything running from meals to registration; and Millie, a volunteer from one of the local schools who was offering a hand during her school holidays. Beyond a couple of CCTV cameras at the entrance and the corridors, the house could have been any other home in the neighbourhood. It also shared many of the traits familiar to people who have visited a refuge in other countries - several rooms tidily organised with multiple beds and bunk beds, a common space with a TV and comfy sofas for women and children to play and relax, a shared kitchen and long dining table. 

Carmen and Monica hosted around 20 women and children at any given time, offering them shelter, meals and support for between 15 days to 4 months (although some people had stayed for longer depending on their needs). After many questions, shared thoughts, and some biscuits we left for our second visit. 

After a short drive, we were greeted by Enrique and Ingrid from Salud de Calle, a service offering health-related services to people sleeping rough. Besides regular outreach sessions, they also had a reception centre offering consultations, physical therapy, mental health support and a sexual health clinic. The team had been handed a disused building which they found in poor disrepair, but was centrally located less than a few blocks away from the main tube stations in the city centre. After enlisting a local architect, they had been working on repairing and renovating the building to fulfil its new use as a health clinic. As we walked in, two doctors held consultations in the next room and others greeted patients in the reception. 

Half of the site was still under construction, but our group left impressed by the architect  - who had also worked on a memorial for people who had died whilst sleeping rough -  and his lofty plans for the rest of the site, conveniently explained and assisted by a model at scale.

These services might not sound drastically different to the ones in the area you live in. But that’s where the community comes in. 

Both services were entirely funded, and almost entirely run, by volunteers. 

Hospederia Santa Francisca Romana was supported, funded and run by three local schools. Pamela was a parent at one of these schools who had been heading fundraising and engagement for a couple of years; whilst Millie was a student, following in the steps of many previous students who had also decided to lend a hand in the previous decade. 

Salud de Calle also relied on volunteers, many of them last-year students of medicine, nursery and other medical sciences; paired with professionals from some of the best hospitals in the city. They had also enlisted the support of the architect pro bono, including setting out the plans to do a large fundraising campaign to obtain the monies needed to renovate the whole building and turn it into a fully functioning clinic. 

This was incredibly significant. 

Without delving too deeply into explanations (e.g. tightly knit communities, large families, the role of religion), it is no surprise that Latin American countries tend to be more community-minded than those in Western Europe, including the UK. 

For me, these initiatives were vivid examples of the power that community-funded and community-orientated initiatives could have to fill in some of the gaps the government might have failed to address. 

To be clear for those of us in the UK, this doesn’t mean that I am advocating for the idea of the ‘Big Society’ of the early 2010s - I believe these are spaces where governments across Latin America could and should be doing more - but instead I am celebrating the great contributions that volunteers and community members can make to help us end homelessness whether we are in Latin America or the UK. 

This role for the community also chimed with multiple conversations I had with colleagues about the role of families and extended communities to insulate people from the worst impacts of poverty or homelessness; as well as rebuilding their role in society as they exit a period of homelessness. This resonates with the experience in the UK too, where we know that relationship breakdown with family and friends tends to be the top reason to seek help related to homelessness.

Not so long ago people across the country rallied to do a shop for an elderly neighbour who couldn’t go out, volunteered to help administer vaccines, or found one of a myriad of ways of supporting someone else. That was a clear sea-change in the role of community, but we don’t need another once-in-a-generation event to be mobilised. 

Just as I strongly believe that data and evidence can help us move and adapt faster to improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness, communities across the UK can play a crucial role in helping us end homelessness too. 

And that’s my main takeaway for those of us (currently) on the Eastern side of the Atlantic: community matters. We can do more, so let’s do more.

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Postscript:

If you want to learn more about the services we visited and consider donating to their causes, you can see more about them here:

HospederiaStaFranciscaRomana.donando.cl/

SaludCalle.Cl

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Footnotes:

 (1) The Gini coefficient is a common metric of the level of inequality measures inequality in a distribution (like income or wealth) on a scale from 0 to 100:

0 means perfect equality (everyone has the same amount).

100 means perfect inequality (one person has everything, and everyone else has nothing).

Now, comparing:

A Gini of 45 means there’s more inequality — the gap between the rich and poor is wider.

A Gini of 33 means there’s less inequality — the distribution is more balanced, though not egalitarian

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(2) Other issues such as corruption and political clientelism in Latin America have meant that social programmes are used as a means of political control and influence, rather than exclusively as mechanisms to reduce poverty and inequality

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