"We have a constant increase in people in disadvantaged situations, with 744 cases of homelessness currently identified where the LEGOS project is being developed", a number that corresponds to half of the 16 municipalities in the district of Faro, Fábio Simão explained to Lusa. Of the municipalities covered by the project, which coincide with those that are the most populous in the region, Loulé is the one with the most cases identified: 159 (of which 141 live on the street, i.e. homeless), followed by Portimão, with 131 (116 homeless), Albufeira, with 115 (104 homeless) and Faro, with 107 (64 homeless). In the municipality of Lagos, 97 cases of homeless people were identified (85 of whom are homeless), in Olhão the teams identified 63 people living on the street, in Vila Real de Santo António 44 people (39 homeless) and in Tavira 31 (15 homeless). Fábio Simão explained that the project is being developed in the municipalities of the Algarve that already have Homeless Planning and Intervention Units (NPISA), and that people who are in temporary accommodation are considered homeless and people who are living on the street are considered homeless. According to the coordinator of that project for social inclusion, the main cause of the constant increase in people without housing is the high cost of renting in the district of Faro. Created in 2021 and coordinated by the Movement to Support the AIDS Problem (MAPS), LEGOS was developed in partnership with the Group to Help Drug Addicts (GATO), the Homeless Support Centre (CASA), the Group to Support Drug Addicts (GRATO) and the Family Planning Association (APF), and is funded by community funds. "The aim of LEGOS is to work in a network with all partners and in the municipalities with Homeless Planning and Intervention Units (NPISA), to help the population that is at risk of social exclusion and homelessness", highlighted Fábio Simão. According to the person in charge, the "constant increase" in the homeless population in the Algarve has also been contributed to by reasons of family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction and migratory phenomena. "We have seen an increase in the number of migrants arriving here in the Algarve, who do not have any kind of response, and who end up in an unprotected and homeless situation", he noted. According to Fábio Simão, LEGOS "initially aimed to support 593 people, a number that was largely exceeded, having reached 1,134 people at the end of 2023". In order to strengthen the network work and respond to the 744 people currently homeless in those municipalities, the LEGOS 2.0 project was launched, which will receive a total of 1.2 million euros in community funds for the operation until the end of 2026, through the Algarve2030 programme. "With this new application, we were able to reinforce the teams, the real-time data on the number of homeless people in the municipalities, and the project is able to link all the accommodation and street team responses, working on their automation and integration", said Fábio Simão. Basically, he added, the project aims to be an aggregating element and, therefore, it is called LEGOS, that is, "to put all the pieces together, because one alone does nothing" "The success of the project is due to this and to the relationship that the Algarve manages to have and we are managing to make the network work, which is the most important thing", he concluded. Read Also: Association that supports homeless migrants in Anjos demands solutions from CML (Portuguese version)