The number of people sleeping rough in Girona is on the rise – a hundred according to the latest count – and the La Sopa shelter for homeless people, located in Barri Vell, the only one that exists in the entire province, has been there for some time. that is saturated. The 66 overnight places available are all occupied, the soup kitchen that serves 110 people a day is at its limit and at times the center has had to close minimum services because “we can't keep up.”
“We have rarely encountered a situation like this, of not being able to offer even minimal services,” emphasizes the director of La Sopa, Carles Fàbregas. Minimum services are those that are offered to the user before being treated by the social worker and include, for example, the use of showers, the washing machine, the dining room or overnight stays.
That this shelter for homeless people is saturated is recognized by the users, the workers and the Girona City Council, which hopes to be able to unravel during this mandate a demand that has been around for years: the need to have a low-demand center. , which helps reduce pressure on the only homeless shelter currently in the district. “The objective would be to decongest La Sopa and the Barri Vell and for everything to be distributed at the city level,” explains the Councilor for Equality and Social Justice, Amy Sabaly.
It is unknown, at the moment, the places that this new space would have or where it would be located. Several options are being considered and the City Council is in contact with other administrations such as the Generalitat or the Provincial Council of Girona to secure the necessary resources to have a center, which they consider "priority" and "vital." “It will be a benefit for the entire district, not just for the city of Girona,” says Sabaly. The fact that Girona centralizes all care for the homeless in a single space, a space that does not exist in any other city in the province, causes users from other towns and people passing through to come.
Low-demand centers are those that allow the most basic needs to be met: sleeping, eating, showering or washing clothes. Currently La Sopa already has fifteen places of this type, although a large part of the users follow a long-term work plan that leads to their departure from the center towards a shared or individual apartment. Through different programs, the La Sopa consortium – formed by the City Councils of Girona and Salt, the Generalitat, the Gironès Regional Council and the Bishopric among other entities – has eleven apartments. An insufficient number. “Before there were more rental opportunities and now the lack of housing has become a barrier that prevents users from completing their integration circuit,” explains Fàbregas, who also notes that the vast majority of users of the center are men. “Female homelessness is almost invisible,” he says. This is so – she continues – because the majority of women “endure situations of job insecurity or violence in order not to end up on the streets.” The future low-demand center will be a non-mixed space, with separate areas for men and women.
Entities that work with homeless people detect an increase in people sleeping rough, in cars or in abandoned warehouses. In the count carried out in May 2022, there were 86 people sleeping on the street, 26 more than in the last census, carried out six years ago. Now there are a hundred. The number of homeless young foreigners and the group between 30 and 60 years old is growing and many have mental problems or alcoholism. “Soup is not an option for many of them; On the street they have no schedule or structure and many prefer to continue like this,” explains Fàbregas.
