The Councilor for Social Services of the Arrecife City Council, Emilia Perdomo, believes that a "low-threshold" shelter is not the answer that people in a situation of social emergency in Lanzarote need. "In these centers they attend to users from 9:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. and the rest of the day they stay on the street", said Perdomo, who even so has assured that the Consistory "does not oppose the opening of a residence".
After the statements made by the Minister of Social Affairs of the Cabildo, Joaquín Caraballo, who stated that Arrecife's refusal was blocking the opening of this center, Perdomo has related in "Radio Lanzarote" that the studies carried out by the technicians of the City Council determined that Arrecife was not a good place to build this facility. To this end, the mayor contacted those responsible for low-threshold shelters in other parts of Spain who, as she explained, told her that in these places "they offer them a bed for 12 hours and a blanket". "And what do they do the rest of the day", she asked.
She has even given the example of other low-threshold shelters in Spain to affirm that in the one in Santiago de Compostela "people who want to go sightseeing and do not have money, so they stay there to sleep and during the day they go with their backpack to visit".
For "big cities"
In her opinion, the low-threshold shelter is necessary in big cities, where people "sleep on the street and under bridges", a fact that "does not happen in Arrecife", according to the councilor. "The 92 people who were in La Rocar were not sleeping on the street, but are in some houses", she says, despite the fact that in the capital there are still cases of homeless people, such as the man who died last week in the car where he lived next to the puddle of San Ginés.
"To those who do not have a home, we provide one, but they do not want to accept it", says Perdomo. She has also denied that the City Council "kicks" the disadvantaged to the Peninsula and has assured that they offer them "to go to other shelters outside the island, where they can rebuild their lives in a decent place". In addition, she maintains that "many people who were in La Rocar have a pension".
"Some of them have met and rented an apartment between three or four. We help them with the deposit, with some months of rent and with food vouchers", she justified. However, she has criticized that many people do not want to take advantage of these aids "and their solution is to form ghettos". "We do not want to form ghettos in Arrecife, we want a center where people are cared for if they have an addiction or an illness", she has qualified.
The Arrecife City Council, according to Emilia Perdomo, is committed to offering aid "for rent for a few months, paying for water and electricity" and for the Government of the Canary Islands to allocate a partida for these people, which "last year was a ridiculous figure".
Without an alternative for a social shelter
Perdomo has pointed out that the future residence of the Franciscan Brothers of Cruz Blanca, of which the first stone was laid a few weeks ago, will serve to house the most disadvantaged, since their care will be continuous. However, this center for people in a situation of social emergency will not open until, at least, 2011.
Perdomo, however, has not offered a concrete alternative to the shelter proposed by the Cabildo and recently claimed by Cáritas, since this NGO feels completely overwhelmed, because it attends to twice as many demands as a few months ago.
The Councilor for Social Services of the Arrecife City Council has also pointed out that the Consistory has not refused to open a soup kitchen, despite insisting that what is needed is "a network of soup kitchens, located one in the south, another in the north and another in Arrecife".
Finally, she has calculated that more than 1,000 people approach the Department of Social Affairs of the City Council every month to ask for help to get ahead and has assured that for these people "a low-threshold shelter is not necessary".
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