Cáritas Diocesana de Canarias has been forced to limit the attention it provides to the most vulnerable families in Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura - up to 22,836 people - due to the increase in the cost of living and the fall in donations they receive, of up to 24% in the province.
This is reflected in the annual report of the activity of this third sector entity during the year 2024, whose aid has reached 7,478 homes, which is half of those it accompanied five years ago, serving a total of 22,836 people, which is also slightly more than half of what it was in 2020.
Both the bishop of the Diocese of the Canary Islands, José Mazuelos, as well as the president of Cáritas in the province, Gonzalo Marrero, and its general secretary, Caya Suárez, have warned about this fact, which has forced the entity to have to subscribe to two loans to continue performing its social work.
And, as Marrero warned in the press conference held this Monday to present the report, Cáritas "has exceeded the limits of its economic capacity for care and reception", so it has entered into deficit.
"We have had to contract two types of loans: one to be able to pay the bills, for one million euros, and another to alleviate what the public administrations take to pay the subsidies", explained Marrero, who has criticized that, at this point in the year, only 19% of the funds approved by public administrations have been paid to them.
The entity reorganizes its services
Due to the increasing costs and the decrease in donations, Cáritas has been forced to reorganize services and the way it works, according to Caya Suárez, who has detailed that, among other things, they have reduced costs in certain aspects such as institutional events, training or meetings that do not have to do directly with social care.
But they have also reorganized services, for example taking certain specific devices to other more general areas to reduce those costs: "It is simplifying and making the intervention we carry out more transversal", the general secretary remarked.
The "need" has also arisen, she said, to "put a ceiling" on certain services that were being offered and create waiting lists, as is the case with the soup kitchen or aid for rent.
Thus, aid to families in 2024 has been reduced by 21 percent, largely because they have decided not to extend them so much in time: if before they offered this assistance for four or five months, now they do it for two or, at most, three.
Denounces the «commodification» of poverty
In addition, Cáritas has taken advantage of the conclusions of this report to denounce what it considers a «commodification» of poverty at the expense of the enrichment of certain people, for which they have asked "not to make use of the situation that the population is going through for their own benefit".
In that sense, Caya Suárez has reproached that the lack of housing is "a serious violation of rights" and that its consequences in all areas are evident, which has made Cáritas have to attend more and more to families with problems accessing a decent roof: up to 55% of the aid that has been given has to do with this issue.
She has also condemned the abuses to which people in vulnerable situations are subjected, detecting during 2024 a "normalization of irregular practices" in relation to housing, including the return of the so-called "hot beds", beds that are rented by the hour for people to rest.
Within the area of housing, Cáritas has assisted 1,527 people during 2024, of which 136 did so through alternative accommodations and low-demand centers, to which are added another 242 families at risk of residential exclusion.
18% of the people assisted are working poor
The general secretary of Cáritas has also highlighted that 18% of the people assisted last year are working poor, and that 10% are in the underground economy, a population that cannot access with the salary they have to cover all their basic needs.
Likewise, 54% of the families assisted in 2024 are of migrant origin, and of these, 57% are in an irregular administrative situation, so they lack public social protection, a situation that is further aggravated among women or minors.
For all this, Marrero has insisted on making a call for the "necessary and urgent solidarity" of the entire Canarian society with the aim of "building alternatives to respond to these challenges" that the entity has ahead.
A call to which José Mazuelos has joined, who has also called on the public administrations "to be more generous" and to have greater sensitivity regarding these problems, since, in his opinion, "the weight of this attention to those who need it most cannot be placed only on Cáritas".
