La indigencia

Ex Patronato de la Infancia.

There are many people braving the South American winter under rough blankets and pieces of cardboard on the streets of Buenos Aires. It can actually be a shock in live in a city that has so much prosperity and yet so many people who sleep on the street. (It's the same in the U.S.)

The ex Patronato de la Infancia is a two-structure complex with gardens and open spaces dating from 1887. It was opened to protect the children arriving among waves of immigrants from Spain, Italy and other parts of Europe, suffering from the poverty associated with not enough housing or work. It was later converted into a residential coop building. Part of San Telmo's historic district, the ex Patronato building can be repaired and superficially altered but never demolished. For nearly a year, residents who were evicted from the building in 2003 have been effectively occupying it.  Police are parked permanently out front, ensuring no one who isn't authorized enters.

After years of tumult, the structure's 118 families were forcefully removed from the premises. Nearly 80 people arrested. The property was flipped to Spain, which planned to open a cultural center. Various sources say the Spanish government ran out of funds. The residents' claim stood: they had run the building as a coop, and therefore are now entitled to it.

On a recent Friday night, children who appeared to be between 4 and 10 squealed as they chased each other around the ample front room. Fortunately for them, there is electricity and running water. It is said the Spanish government is footing the bill. But it's 13 degrees, foggy, with 100 percent humidity. It's cold and the cold sticks to you.

A woman guards a makeshift information booth, plastered with posters denouncing the mayor of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, saying he is a mentirosa -- a liar -- who refuses to negotiate. As soon as the woman who says she is 26 begins to speak, I notice she is missing most of the front teeth on the right side of her mouth. When I ask her where she lives, she answers that for most of her life, it was this building, whose windows are now boarded up with plywood and whose ivory, 19th-century facade is tattooed with graffiti. For ten years she and more than a hundred other residents, shuffled through a series of failed social housing, fought to return the Patronato building and protect a heritage site from neglect, and against poverty and cold.