Lockers change lives for homeless

The street team is helping Silva, who moved to Portugal from Guinea Bissau, a tiny former Portuguese colony in West Africa, three years ago, to get a residency permit.

He has struggled to find steady work without the permit and has been sleeping on the streets since his sister－an unemployed single mother of two－kicked him out of her house in September because she could not afford to support him any longer.

"I really just need to be able to work," says Silva, 37, who was stylishly dressed in a clean, pink button-down shirt and cap.

Joana Guerreiro, a psychologist on ACA's street team, says the lockers "empower people".

"Having a key to your own space also gives people purpose in their lives and a sense of control," she says.

Forty-five people have used a locker since the project was launched.

Many like Marcio Miguel, 36, credit the project with helping them get off the streets.

He moved to Lisbon from Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands earlier this year but quickly found himself living on the streets after he lost his construction job because he abused cocaine and heroin.

Before he had a locker, he would hide his belongings to avoid having to carry everything with him.

"On the streets, you can't have food because it disappears. Others who are hungrier than you take it," he says.

"With the locker, I started to have more clothes. Before, even after having a bath, I had to put on dirty clothes. You either wear the same clothes or you drag everything around."

With the help of ACA's street team, he was then able to find low-cost housing and a drug-treatment program.

"A locker seems like a little thing－but it's not," says Miguel as he clears out his stuff from the locker he no longer needs.