Pandemic fuels increased demand for poverty relief charity Caritas' services

Catholic NGO laments "permanent state of crisis" since 2008

A Caritas food bank in Barcelona's Les Corts district (by Mariona Puig)
A Caritas food bank in Barcelona's Les Corts district (by Mariona Puig) / ACN

ACN | Vic

July 7, 2022 03:05 PM

Poverty relief charity Caritas assisted 12% more people in Catalonia last year than in 2019, before the pandemic hit.

In 2021, the Catholic NGO's 10 Catalan branches aided just under 100,000 households where almost 242,000 people live, as was reported at a press conference in the central Catalan city of Vic on Thursday.

According to Caritas, the main issues these people are faced with are housing problems, precarious working conditions, and the digital technology divide.

Almost half of them – 43% – lack access to decent housing, while 6 in 10 are unemployed or looking for work and another fifth have jobs that do not allow them to cover their basic needs. 

The charity has been faced with a "permanent state of crisis" since 2008, Romà Casanova, the bishop of Vic, said. 

"First we had the economic crisis, then we had the Syrian refugee crisis, the pandemic, and the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine."

Caritas, which receives most of its funding from private donors, called on increased efforts from authorities to revert these issues.

"We're not moving forward at the rate people who are faced with poverty on a daily basis need us to," Caritas Catalunya president Francesc Roig said. "We haven't learned anything from the pandemic."