The Bolivian couple, with a 9-year-old son, represents the face of poverty in Catalonia: a migrant family with children. The wife, Flores, arrived in January 2022, and six months later the father, Morillo, joined her after selling all their properties to "invest everything" in a new life. This was Morillo's second attempt to migrate; twenty years prior, he had tried to cross Mexico toward the United States on the feared train known as La Bestia, but was expelled in Houston.

The main motivation for migrating was not poverty, as their salaries as a nurse and baker allowed them to get by, but rather “insecurity” and gang violence in Bolivia. Their goal was for their son to have opportunities to prosper. The minor currently speaks fluent Catalan and plays football in a children's club, providing an escape from the family's difficult situation.

They live in a former cellar on the border of Sant Adrià and Barcelona. After initially squatting there, they managed to convince the owner to rent it legally. They currently pay 650 euros monthly and have a certificate of habitability. Despite the legality, without a residence permit and with intermittent jobs, making ends meet is “difficult,” and they rely on food aid from social organizations.

This life in converted commercial premises is the new face of homelessness, according to David Espinós, director of Amics del Quart Món. The organization often detects these cases by the curtains hanging in the windows of old closed shops in neighborhoods like la Pau or la Verneda, as urban pressure has emptied traditional informal settlements in Barcelona.