The house of Tomas has the foundations on four wheels and the walls of sheet metal and glass.
Since the pandemic began, this melancholic 50-year-old man has closed his eyes to rest in an old Volkswagen Polo parked on a street in the Cuatro Vientos area.
"I'm sleeping in the car, temporary address,
" reads a sign that has been placed on the glass of the driver's seat.
"I need a bed," says this man desperately whose story has touched the hearts of all the residents of the neighborhood.
"
If I could sleep a normal month, I could recover from the pain I suffer
and could start working anywhere," says Tomás, who suffers from stenosis in the lower back that hinders him from developing a normal life.
Due to this ailment he is hardly able to rest between the seats of an old Polo of more than 20 years.
"
I can't sleep more than two hours,
" he says sadly.
Far from rejecting him, the neighbors have created a network of solidarity with Tomás, helping him with food or small amounts of money.
It does not receive any public contribution and is pending entry into the Minimum Vital Income benefits
.
«The neighbors are helping me little by little.
In fact, I slept on the street, but a woman offered me her car and this is where I live ”, says this man who is also pointing at a nearby food bank where they regularly give him food and a menu on Sundays.
He prefers not to speak of his relatives.
"
If I
had a real family I would not be here.
Of course I have a sister, nephews, uncles and cousins.
But as if he had nothing.
He relates that he lived with his mother, whom he cared for and helped in the last years of his life when she suffered from a chronic lung disease.
«I was with my mother during the worst years, when it faded.
He passed away and we had to sell the apartment for debts and I had to face them.
I had very little left.
It was pulling hostels until I no longer had more means
and I stayed on the street, "he continues.
Then he was sleeping in a shack in a park in Aluche and later in a local.
I thought it was my blessing.
He was indoors again and no longer slept on the ground, but drug addicts and people who used all day slept there.
One day they beat me up and slashed my face and I was admitted to the Gómez Ulla for several weeks, "he continues, showing the scar left by the attack.
On August 1 of last year he decided to return to the streets.
Again, he looked
naked
.
He spent the night out in the open again, sleeping between mattresses and benches.
With the arrival of the winter cold, he sought shelter in a bench near an Army barracks.
"The soldiers were great. They gave me food, clothes and even markers because I like to paint and draw pictures
."
But winter and cold came.
And there another angel appeared again.
A neighbor left him to sleep in an old, useless pole with no battery.
It was the month of March when the pandemic began.
For several months it has been his roof.
It has the crystals papered so that the light does not enter it.
Sometimes he opens them to let in the sun's rays and heat a pot of lentils.
He acknowledges that the Social Samur has visited him on several occasions offering him accommodation.
I don't want to go to shelters.
I was in one and we were eight people in a room and living together was very complicated.
They steal you, they also beat you and you can catch the coronavirus right away
, "he says.
«Sometimes I sleep better sitting down than lying down, the pain is the worst I have.
I am signed up for unemployment and pending the Minimum Income.
As soon as I can, I'll try to find a room somewhere.
While that moment arrives, he will continue to spend his nights in front of a steering wheel.
Waiting for his life to start again.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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