The number of users of soup kitchens is increasing. According to a study by the University of Barcelona and the Carasso Foundation, in Spain 13.3% of households experienced some degree of food insecurity in the period between July 2020 and July 2021. This percentage represents about 2.5 million homes, that is, 6.2 million people. For its part, the Spanish Federation of Food Banks (FESBAL) indicates that in 2021 more than 172.9 million kilos of food were distributed in Spain, which helped more than 1,353,000 beneficiaries.
Although the typical user of a soup kitchen tends to be associated with a migrant and homeless person, this profile is changing in recent times due to a series of factors ranging from inflation to the increase in housing prices, the containment of salaries, etc. To give an example, 47% of users of the San Juan de Dios Soup Kitchen, in Seville, have a job, but despite this they remain poor. Another percentage receives some type of aid from the state, which can range between 400 and 500 euros, but is still forced to resort to the services of this center.
According to Rosario Uriarte, coordinator of the Santa Anna Field Hospital in Barcelona, an entity that was born in 2017 from a cold wave and that currently offers nearly 300 services daily, including breakfasts, lunches and dinners, "we usually have a few 60-70 recurring places, generally for migrants and homeless people who come every day. The rest are profiles in transit, from newcomers to the city to people who are suddenly left without work or housing and need specific support until they regain stability ".
In this sense, Uriarte insists that in all cases it is desirable that users be 100% transitory profiles, although this is not always possible. "The idea of both the dining room and the rest of the services we offer is to provide comprehensive support to users precisely with the objective of accompanying them in a specific moment of difficulty in their lives, in a timely manner and for as long as necessary, towards a life better". For this reason, this entity, which includes the Parish of Santa Anna and Missatgers per la Pau, offers tailored care that includes, in addition to the dining room, psychological and psychiatric support, legal procedures, language courses, career guidance, etc. In short, "our mission is to offer a way out of their situation, preventing it from perpetuating itself, allowing users to regain self-esteem and hope," he explains.
According to the director of the NGO Food Justice, Javier Guzmán, all of this is not possible in any case if a fundamental right such as that of food is not guaranteed – what's more: shielded –. "Food is one of the great issues of the next 40 years, a fundamental right that we have left in the hands of private companies in the face of the passivity of governments." In this sense, Guzmán denounces that soup kitchens are supported by private donations, which means leaving a fundamental right of citizens "in the hands of charity." "It is the state that is obliged to ensure this right and not allow it to fall into private hands. There are already numerous measures that are being successfully applied in some European countries: cards with funds to spend in municipal markets, creation of public supermarkets, collective restaurants for vulnerable people... These are measures that guarantee the right to food and that at the same time empowering, avoiding sad and stigmatizing situations such as being forced to stand in line at a soup kitchen waiting for a dish that another person has decided on," Guzmán continues.
These are measures that, according to Food Justice, infantilize and stigmatize users, since "people are treated as if they were not adults, as if they could not decide their diet in the same way as other citizens." The only solution, then, is to "eradicate food banks and implement measures to guarantee people's right to decide, also in matters of food. If this is not the case, they are being told that they are second-class."
Some administrations, such as Barcelona City Council, are already implementing measures along these lines. One of them is the creation of the so-called Espais Alimenta, which offer community kitchens and cooking courses in three parts of the city available to people who need them. The council also offers home-delivered meals, especially for older people who have difficulties getting around, and has Food Distribution Centers (CDA), which can be municipal or privately managed and are supported, once again, through the donations from the Banc d'Aliments and volunteer work.
Barcelona City Council also has soup kitchens that are publicly managed or arranged with various social entities, which offer a total of 1,377 places every day, all of them intended exclusively for families with minors. It is a model similar to that of other local administrations in Spain, which have a limited number of places, insufficient to satisfy an increasing demand. This situation results in a good part of dining rooms falling into private hands, in many cases with a religious vocation.
In the case of the Santa Anna Field Hospital, promoted by the parish in collaboration with Missatgers de la Pau, which (unlike public canteens, which receive users through Social Services), have their own admission process . "The breakfasts in the dining room are open to everyone, but to be able to access lunches and dinners it is necessary to go through a reception process, with a personal interview in which the condition is diagnosed and it is established whether or not the person is the profile It may happen that the diagnosis recommends another type of referral or a referral is made to Social Services, so that an exclusive itinerary is designed for each person, whether internal or external," explains Uriarte.
Although this organization receives some subsidies, its management is entirely private. Being a religious institution, the person in charge of Santa Anna explains that at the Campaña Hospital "they talk about God from freedom, because in the end we do not stop being a parish. We do not omit it, but we always try to promote dialogue interreligious. Part of our users are young boys who are in shelters, most of them Muslim, and with them we talk about God as if he were our own God. The Christian spirit, as long as it is transmitted from respect and tolerance, must "to see ourselves reflected in fraternity, empathy and solidarity, never in propaganda".
The Fundació Formació i Treball is in charge, for its part, of managing two of the municipal soup kitchens in Barcelona (Eixample and Sarrià), although it has other types of services for the social integration of people without resources, from residences to home delivery food services. In the case of publicly managed canteens, users arrive through the City Council's Social Services and, in general terms, the maximum desired length of stay is six months. The head of Operations of the Hospitality Department, Alejandro Belmonte, explains it: "Our objective is not for the person to remain in the dining room, but simply for it to serve as support to overcome a complex specific situation that must have a beginning and an end."
For her part, the head of Collective production at the Fundació Formació i Treball, Marina Farell, is in charge of organizing the menus that are served not only in these two dining rooms, but also in the rest of the services it offers. "We work with a registered dietitian who is responsible for designing the menus to meet dietary needs throughout the week. In some cases it is the only meal that many users eat throughout the day, so it is It is important that it is balanced: there must be proteins, fruits, vegetables, legumes...", he explains. The number of people with special needs is high, since there is a demand for halal diets and to a lesser extent allergic and intolerant people, diabetics, low-fat diets, etc. "When Ramadan is celebrated, special hours are established to meet the needs of the Muslim community," says Farell.
The production manager insists that despite receiving food donations, these are insufficient to cover the users' needs, so their own resources are used to acquire, above all, "foods that are difficult to obtain through donations, such as meats." or fresh, in general". On special dates such as Christmas, New Year or Sant Joan, special, "more festive" dinners are also prepared. The same thing happens at the Santa Anna Field Hospital, which in the case of breakfasts also works with food from Cáritas and the Food Bank. The main meals, however, come from the Ferrer Sustainability Foundation, in addition to receiving donations from some surrounding hotels.
As for personnel, at Hospital de Campaña there are about ten people hired and more than 250 volunteers to implement the different programs, 170 of them from the soup kitchen. In the case of Fundació i Treball, 80% of the staff are "people displaced from the world of work who are offered training in cooking to be able to promote a professional career," says Farell.
Guzmán, for his part, insists that beyond the good intentions of many private entities to combat social inequality, we find ourselves in a case of "extreme emergency" and denounces that "by not implementing drastic public policies, it is easy for citizens to I end up thinking that if nothing is done, it won't be that serious.
