An ancient Roman road passed through here that, over the centuries, gave way to a field of wheat that in the 1960s was transformed into the working district of Aluche, one of the most populous in Madrid.
It is located in the southwest of the city and, among the more than 70 thousand residents who transit it daily, the familiar faces that come to the Neighborhood Association to see more are increasing. how to get something to eat.
The coronavirus epidemic that nailed its claws in Spain three months ago bled the precarious employment of numerous neighbors who today line up to live on the food bags that the Association distributes.
Caritas tripled attention to vulnerable families since the health crisis broke out due to the pandemic and the Food Bank, the non-governmental organization present throughout the country, not enough.
“Here in Aluche, many people live who worked in hospitality, domestic service, elderly care and are the ones who have lost their jobs the most,” he tells Clarion Yolanda Juarros Barcenilla, a teacher who came to the neighborhood from northern Spain 30 years ago and today is a member and volunteer of the Association.
In Aluche there are about 1,200 residents registered to receive a food bag. / AFP
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“We all know each other. They are neighbors who live in our same apartment, that their children have played with mine in the same park. Without stable contracts, they had precarious jobs with low wages and have been left with nothing, “says Yolanda.
In a month and a half, the Covid-19 wiped out almost a million jobs in Spain. April unemployment figures indicated that 283,000 people were left without work. In total, the unemployed number about 3,800,000.
The postcard of people standing in line with a chinstrap and head bowed waiting their turn to take a bag with something to put on the table is more and more frequent. Today in Spain people talk about the “tails of hunger”.
“We do not belong to any political party. Our association is small and very combative to improve the life of the neighborhood. We wanted a new hospital, and we haven’t got it yet, but we did get a new health center, a new library. We have always done a very political job. But suddenly, people came to ask us if we knew where they could get food because they had lost their jobs, they didn’t have enough to eat and the social service telephones were not answering, “Yolanda reconstructs how they came to distribute bags of food for the children. 1,200 neighbors that they have registered today.
Volunteers also distribute milk for 150 babies. / AFP
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They gather food throughout the week and opened a checking account where they receive small and large donations: “From 2 euros to thousands,” he says. “We only distribute the bags on Saturdays and Sundays to those who are registered by address. It is not our intention to know if they have papers or not. Only one address for a person to come from that home to pick up the merchandise. We have 150 babies who receive the milk for the whole month“He adds.
“We put pressure on the social services of the Madrid City Council because our role is not this. It has to be the social services that help. But they tell us no they answer them. Politicians do not understand that people without a job contract have a mania for eating. “
The Madrid City Council assures that they are dealing with the social emergency. / AFP
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From the Madrid City Council they assure that they are dealing with the social emergency that exploded in parallel to the peak of infections by Covid-19: “We are serving three times more people daily than we attended the same day last year, and they are numbers they are not going to decrease but they are going to increase, ”Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida said last week in a meeting with Ibero-American businessmen.
“We have made a forecast that there may be between 40 to 70 thousand households that are going to need food consistently from the Madrid City Council. In the worst case scenario, we would have to guarantee food for more than 200 thousand people in the city of Madrid. We have enough protection mechanisms so that this does not have to degenerate into riots, “added the mayor.
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Aluche belongs to the Latina district which, according to the City Council, is the one that serves the most vulnerable families.
They say they assist about 10,900 residents in three kitchens set up in the Costa Rica School, the Nuestra Señora del Lucero School and the Casa de Campo Hotel School. And that they have already distributed more than 34,000 kilos of food.
Aluche belongs to the Latina district which, according to the City Council, is the one that serves the most vulnerable families./ AFP
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Since the state of alarm began on March 14, “the City Council is helping 82,000 people to eat,” said the Deputy Mayor, Begoña Villacís. Some 30,000 families can eat because the City Council makes emergency contracts, which in the case of the districts alone are 6 million euros ”.
Some restaurants in Madrid, such as the Dudua Palacio, provide their own. From its premises on the Cuesta de San Vicente 2, next to the Plaza de España, the Dudua Palacio used to offer executive lunch menus for between 12 and 17 euros. From May 1, he distributes them for free. “In the beginning there were 40 and now we give more than 220 a day,” they say.
On the restaurant’s website they warn the clientele that they remain unopened to the public but that they are cooking for those most affected by the epidemic. So there is a plate of hot food on each table.
Madrid. Correspondent
