This initiative offers free food to people in need and it is a platform involving many organisations. The Food Bank already assists 118,000 people in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and warns that “the figure is growing”.
The Catalan Government announced that knowledge of the Catalan language will be a “very determining” factor in proving integration in Catalonia in order to renew residency certificates or family grouping.
Barcelona-El Prat Airport’s terminals become home to many homeless people from Barcelona Metropolitan area but also from around the world, but not for much longer. The Spanish Airport Authority decided to close the terminal from midnight to 5am to stop this activity. Passengers or people waiting for passengers will ac cess the terminals through secured doors.
The Spanish Vice President for Economy Elena Salgado refused the idea proposed by three Catalan parties to allow mortgage holders end their debt by returning their house to the bank. This measure already exists in the US and other countries. In Spain, a country with a high unemployment rate, many people are not able to afford to pay their mortgage. However, at the moment, debt does not disappear when banks execute mortgages and take away the house. Salgado wants to keep the current system in order not to harm the banks and thus the recovery, but at a high social price.
On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, NGOs ask the Government to focus on policies that reduce social exclusion.
Economic crisis is hitting some families unmercifully. 40,000 families that could not pay back their mortgage have lost their homes, according to a study made by the General Workers’ Union (UGT) and a consumers association presented today. A judicial procedure that permits banks and savings banks to survey homes and put them up for auction for 50% of their value is putting thousands of families in the risk of social exclusion.
The Barcelona City Hall has invested 6.8 million euros to the development of social centres that will attend to families with a high risk for social exclusion. The Centre Obert of Sant Martí is an example of the success of social centres.
A new law has just been approved that would give 60,000 people access to health care that previously did not have it. The majority of these individuals are liberal professionals who do not pay social security, members of religious groups, and members of s