“We have had problems for months, but every time there is an emergency that affects many people, the system becomes even more stressed.” It is repeated by up to five workers from social services and the Social Emergency and Emergency Center (CUESB) of Barcelona City Council who do not want to appear with their first and last name. Both the district social services and the CUESB deal with emergencies every day for people or families who need accommodation. But in recent months, they explain, the availability of guesthouses, hostels or even tourist apartments that a company hired by the City Council (BCD Travel) is looking for is lower, and the CUESB hosts many nights for people in its own facilities, on the street. from Llacuna (Poblenou). Adding to this pressure are agreements with 24 city councils in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) that also use the CUESB when an unexpected incident occurs, emergencies that account for 10% of all those attended to. This week, residents were urgently evacuated from the building Boat of Esplugues de Llobregat, declared in ruins. Municipal sources admit “tense situations” but assure that “the service has not been saturated at any time.”
Users of emergency accommodation can be a person who has been left homeless, another with addictions, families who have been left without electricity (such as those on Sant Climent del Raval street in recent weeks), evicted, have suffered a fire in their house, or a woman is a victim of gender violence… Last year, Barcelona City Council revealed that it spends 60,000 euros a day on emergency accommodation. There are currently 2,940 people housed in pensions, reports the council. And, furthermore, the CUESB addresses emergencies that affect many people or families. In their day, sub-Saharan migrants, now the residents of the urgent eviction of Esplugues. At the end of the year, the CUESB housed the evicted families of a substandard building in Badalona. A few weeks ago there was another massive emergency, that of the families of the collapsed building in Badalona, and later those of the adjacent buildings, when they were also evicted. Days later, others from Santa Coloma de Gramenet. “We are a service specialized in emergencies and when there is a large group there are no problems, but it puts stress on an already very stressed system,” point out psychologists and educators from a service that has a lot of recognition.
“There may be a specific moment, due to congresses or festivals in the city, that the guesthouses, tourist apartments and hostels cannot provide coverage and we cover it in our facilities, at the CEB (Short Stay Center), but lately it happens every night, has become chronic. And they are profiles that should not be brought together, because families or other users need privacy,” explains an employee. The CEB, designed “for very specific cases and a few days” is on the second floor of the CUESB and has between 94 places. The staff that cares for these users also works at night and is not a staff member of the emergency center, so their turnover is very high. The council assures that it has been reinforced with eight professionals.
On Monday night, the people who were in the CEB and the 10 families who had to be accommodated from Esplugues de Llobregat were housed “exceptionally” in other CUESB offices in the same block of the Poblenou neighborhood: in the CAE (Centro de Emergency Accommodation, a very new space located in barracks that was closed a few days ago after the fall and winter season). The Esplugues families alone numbered 41 people. “The big problem is that we are patching. No one has slept upstairs for many months,” laments another employee. The CAE has a dozen spaces for between four and five people.
“You arrive here when everything fails: there is no public housing, racism prevents many users from accessing market housing, and those who could rent cannot pay the wild prices,” reflects a professional. The workers consulted assure that when they ask the City Council, municipal officials refer them to Progess, the company that manages the service. And vice versa, when the subcontractor is alerted, she points out that the council is responsible for the service, the same sources add. In parallel to the conflict caused by the saturation of pensions, half of CUESB's permanent employees have another file open with the City Council and Progess: complaints for illegal transfer of workers, with which they seek to integrate into the municipal workforce. The City Council points out that the new contract document, which comes into force on April 1, again with Progess, contemplates an increase of 2.3 million per year compared to the previous contract, so it becomes seven million per year.
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