EXCLUSIVE Sleeping rough in Benidorm: How Brits are living in a homeless encampment after losing everything

Daily Mail​

12 hours ago

Every summer the main parades of Benidorm's heaving New Town are packed with Brits.
Crowds flock to the town on the Costa Blanca for its cheap and cheerful drinks, glorious sunshine and beautiful beaches.
But while sozzled stags, excited hens and elderly holidaymakers enjoy themselves - just a few yards away it is a very different story.
Behind Benidorm's rows of Irish pubs, British cafes and sports bars is a rubbish-filled homeless encampment.
Among the shacks and piles of rubble is a desperate community of Brits, Spaniards and Albanians sleeping rough.
The group live in the makeshift structures - without running water or electricity - after a surge in BnB-style properties priced them out of their homes.
Jodie, a British woman who has been unable to find a job or accommodation in Benidorm since Brexit in 2020, said the people living in the encampment have formed a 'community'.
She told MailOnline: 'When I first moved here everyone was on the streets alone, no one talked to each other, but I've made a little community,' she explained.
'I said we've got to help each other out little by little.'
She added: 'We need help, I went to social services begging for help and they gave me an appointment for three months time and we missed it because we have no internet, we literally have nothing.'
Jodie first moved to Benidorm in 1994 with her parents before returning to the UK with her son in 2012, so he could attend a British university.
She eventually returned, but then found out she was no longer legally able to reside in Spain - making it impossible to find a job.
Jodie said: 'I went back to England and when I asked for benefits they wouldn't give them to me because I had been out the country for too long, and now I've come home [to Spain] and I'm an illegal immigrant.'
Jonny Elraiz runs City Streets Community Project, a charity that delivers food to the homeless in Benidorm.
Four times a week Jonny and a group of volunteers cook up to 90 meals and deliver them to those sleeping rough in the Costa Blanca South area of Benidorm.
He drives around stopping on street corners and at the 'commune', which sits below a cluster of high-rise hotels.
The encampment has a direct view of New Town where thousands of Brits descend each summer to soak up the Spanish sunshine and let loose.
It sits on a sandy hill above a car park and is littered with piles of rubbish and waste from building sites.
There is one makeshift road that snakes uphill and passes several abandoned properties that have been marked with colourful towels by groups of people squatting inside them.
Jonny explained that there are plenty of Brits who now consider Benidorm their home but have been forced to sleep rough because they can no longer afford to pay rent.
He spoke to MailOnline about a veteran, who has found himself unemployed and living in Benidorm.
'Mark was a squaddie with the Royal Engineers,' he explained.
'He came out here a number of years ago, he's a builder and had a relationship breakdown, he was just living doing his work but because of the pandemic there was no work and he ended up on the streets.
'He's lost all his papers and he's living on the streets trying to get the odd days work here and there.'
Not only does Jonny hand-deliver meals to the homeless in Benidorm but he also helps those stuck in the country return home.
On a regular basis he receives calls from Brits who have lost their passports, run out of money and are unable to return to the UK.
And while most people assume a weekend of partying will end in a hungover flight home, an increasing number of Brits end up trapped in the country.
In several scenarios tourists have found themselves waking up in prison without their passport and upon release are forced to stay in Spain with nowhere to live until they get a court date.
Spain is currently locked in a debate over anti-tourism with many people in towns popular with foreign holidaymakers protesting in the streets and sometimes attacking tourists.
The protesters claim that a never-ending stream of tourists is increasing property prices and squeezing locals out of their towns - as well over-crowding beaches and damaging beauty spots.
The tourism battle lines in Benidorm are drawn between the traditional quaint streets of the 'Old Town', where native visitors go to unwind, and the buzzing pub-packed strips of 'the New Town' where Brit drinkers party the night away.
One local told MailOnline: 'I want them [the Brits] to stay away from this area, not many people like the British tourists.
Jonny explained that as Benidorm continues to cater towards tourists - expanding rental properties and increasing food prices - locals are facing a cost-of-living crisis.
'I've got two or three guys who have a full-time job and they're living on the streets,' he told MailOnline.
'There's just nowhere to rent that is within the price range.
'There's nothing, you can't find anything, you see people on social media doing a flat share, you're looking at €400 to €200 a week for a room in a shared house.
'The average worker is on €1100 a month, so how's anyone supposed to survive?
'And most of the places are empty. That's the heartbreaking thing about it. You know, a lot of the tower blocks, and in the towns around as well.
'I've got a mate that's got an apartment in one of the tower blocks and eight months of the year there's him and one other apartment.
'Homes should be about where people live it shouldn't be about investment.
'Tourism has been exploited in a way which has had a detrimental effect on the locals.'