Even in the middle of the day, a person doesn’t have to sleep alone on the street in Bogota.

As desperate as the scene appears, there’s a certain comfort in the connection between this man sleeping on a busy street at noon and the mural just behind him. No matter the circumstances that landed him there, the man deserved that sense of comfort, even if fleeting.

I see similar scenes often in Nice –minus the sleeping friend in the mural. According to data reported by Nice Matin in February, 281 people slept on the streets nightly in Nice in 2024, up from 247 the year before.

(Located for Urban Ballads, a 2026 project.)

14 August 2015, Bogota, Colombia