The City Hall of Vitoria-Gasteiz opened in March a centre for homeless vitorians when the Spanish Government decreed the confinement, first at the Pío Baroja College and then at the fronton of Lakua. The fronton, which has welcomed some 50 people on average, has closed its doors on 15 July. In recent weeks and until the closing date, the City Hall and the Red Cross – the resource is municipal but managed by the Red Cross – have sent the users of the center to different resources. The City Hall has not announced the closure, and ARGIA has been able to know through the users the closure and the events of the last weeks.

Six people have been sent to an apartment in Ibaiondo, in two different apartments, and have been rehoused. Between eight and ten people are in the City Hall's usual emergency services: Hostel and Municipal Social Reception Center (CEIP). Ten of them were transferred to the campsite Ibaia, located in the suburbs of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in three different bungalows. On the same day of the closure, sixteen users were transferred to a building located on Prado Street. The four rooms of the space are shared from four to four, overnight in the bunk beds. Most people have been told that the resource that has touched them is for six months. Nobody has told you what will happen next. About eight users have left the center by their own means in recent days, tired of uncertainty and waiting for an exit that did not arrive.

“They have not kept the word”

According to the users, the representatives of the City Hall and the Red Cross at the meetings held in the same fronton of Lakua promised, on the one hand, to leave the center to the ordinary dwellings, along with the people chosen by them according to their affinity and their own room, and, on the other, to develop a project of the future based on the inclusion and the needs and possibilities of each person. Users have denounced that they have not complied with any of the two promises made by the company.

In the new resources there are hardly any vitorians with their own room and no one can choose or propose where to go or with whom to go. In general, they have been informed one day in advance of the departure from the centre of Lakua, without in some cases explaining where they were going. Last week, nearly 20 users still in the centre were informed that the closure would take place on Wednesday, 15 of this week. At the beginning of this week, the intention of the social services or the Red Cross is not yet known. The information meeting scheduled for Tuesday was suspended by those responsible for the City Hall hours before, without explaining why the fire occurred. The next day, Wednesday, they were told one hour in advance that they had to pick up their belongings because they were going to close the center and where each person was going to drive. No one knows the customised reinsertion plans for the future.

Users have reported to ARGIA the worsening of life in downtown Lakua in recent weeks. The number of Red Cross troops and volunteers has fallen and the activities carried out within the centre in the previous months have faded. Without information, seeing that from one day to the next his colleagues were sent to other resources, in total uncertainty about the near future, tension and nervousness have increased. “Pain, tension, silence,” one of the users described the environment in the pediment. Also among many workers and volunteers was the concern, helplessness or outrage at what was happening.

Municipal pledges

These promises of the users have been made public over these months by municipal and Red Cross officials. Social Policy Councillor Jon Armentia has repeated on several occasions the motto “we will leave no one behind” during the confinement over situations of exclusion. On 8 May, the leaders of the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Red Cross of Álava visited the centre of Lakua. “It is possible not to leave anyone behind in the crisis we are experiencing these days, thanks, among other things, to institutions, individuals and entities such as the Red Cross, which are doing their best inside. There you see how we understand solidarity in Vitoria, in this city that always gives the best to those who need help,” said the mayor. Armentia noted that the priority was “to serve the most vulnerable and vulnerable groups” and that this is why a “strong and strong social shield was being built to help these people out of this situation”. He added that the center of Lakua "would not close until the most appropriate solution for each of them is defined and each and every one of them analyzed."

On 9 June, the City Hall and the Red Cross held a press conference to present the “plan they are preparing” for homeless people in Lakua. “We are working to offer a future to these people, to get out of the street, with support that allows inclusion,” said Armentia, among others.

Promises in press conferences, hidden closures

The centre has been closed, but no one is currently aware of the promised plan. It is to be assumed that there is no project, because if a plan “in preparation” deserved the press conference, at least a detailed plan would be worth the same. On the contrary, the homeless centre of Lakua has disappeared without any official notification of cierre.El July 17 a letter from the evictions of the centre was published. They asked that at the end of the confinement they should not be condemned “again to contempt and oblivion” and that they should be given an opportunity. The call then has all the news.