The number of people sleeping rough in Girona is on the rise – a hundred according to the last count – and the La Sopa homeless shelter, located in Barri Vell, the only one in the entire province, has long been saturated. The 66 overnight places available are all occupied, the social canteen that serves 110 people a day is at its limit and at some points the center has had to close the minimum services because "we don't have enough".
"Rarely have we come across a situation like this, of not being able to offer even minimal services", emphasizes the director of La Sopa, Carles Fàbregas. The minimum services are those offered to the user before being attended to by the social worker and include, for example, use of the showers, washing machine, dining room or overnight stay.
That this reception center for homeless people is saturated is recognized by the users, the workers and the Girona City Council, which hopes to be able to unblock during this mandate a claim that has been brewing for years: the need to have a center of low demand, which helps to reduce the pressure on the only reception center that currently exists in the demarcation of Girona. "The aim would be to decongest La Sopa and the Old Quarter and for everything to be spread across the city," explains the Councilor for Equality and Social Justice, Amy Sabaly.
It is not known, at the moment, how many places this new space would have or where it would be located. Various options are being studied and the Consistory is in contact with other administrations such as the Generalitat or the Diputació de Girona to secure the necessary resources to have a centre, which they consider "of the highest priority" and "vital". "It will be a benefit for the whole demarcation, not just for the city of Girona," says Sabaly. The fact that the city centralizes all care for the homeless in a single space, a resource that is also unique in the province, means that users from other localities and people who are passing through go there.
Low demand centers are those that cover the most basic needs: sleep, eat, shower or wash clothes. Currently, La Sopa already has about fifteen places of this kind, although a large part of the users follow a long-term work plan that leads to them leaving the center for a shared or individual flat. Through different programs, the La Sopa consortium - formed by the Girona and Salt City Councils, the Generalitat, the Gironès County Council or the Bishopric, among other entities - has eleven flats. An insufficient number, as recognized by its director. "Before there were more opportunities to rent and now the lack of housing has become a stopper that prevents users from completing their integration circuit", explains Fàbregas, who also notes that the vast majority of users from the center are men. "Female homelessness is practically invisible," she says. This is so - he continues - because most women "endure situations of job insecurity or violence in order not to end up on the street". The future low-demand center will be a non-mixed space, with separate areas for men and women.
Organizations that work with homeless people detect an increase in people sleeping on the ground, in cars or in abandoned buildings. In the count formulated in May 2022, there were 86 who were counted sleeping on the street, 26 more than in the last statistic, made six years ago. Now there are a hundred of them. The number of homeless young foreigners is growing and the group is between 30 and 60 years old, and many have mental or alcohol problems. "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.
