On 16 March, the mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Gorka Uraran, launched a series of measures to ensure that people living on the street are transferred to Colegio Pío Baroja. These measures, according to the same sources, were security measures prior to COVID-19.

However, after just six days, on 22 March, the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz had to set up a new reception service in the fronton of Lakua, where 50 places were opened for the homeless, transferring to Lakua the neighbours who until now were in the gym of the former college of Pío Baroja. However, the 30 empty beds were maintained so that, if the need arose, the service would be prepared. Only in six days, the 30 beds were deficient.

According to a study by the Center for Documentation and Research on Social Services and Social Policies (SIIS), in 2018 in Álava 325 people were in serious residential exclusion. 133 were women. That is, 325 persons who do not have the right to an environment that meets the minimum conditions of security, privacy and health (migrants and refugees in transit are out of compute). The #Nietxeangeratukonaiz that these days has become mantra is nothing more than a malicious joke for these people.

In fact, the situation has suddenly put on the table that at least half a hundred people could not stay at home or have access to other accommodation. Until March 16, 50 residents of Vitoria-Gasteiz were completely invisible to the City Hall.

It has been necessary to reach the health crisis to make visible the situation suffered by many neighbors and neighbors: lack of economic resources, inability to access basic social services, serious housing problems… But this health crisis has only illuminated the situation that existed before 16 March, in which the emergency situation became more serious after years of a management decided by the City Hall in favor of the interests of the construction companies, buitres.

On 23 April, Jon Armentia, CEO of Social Policy, Older People and Children, spoke about the future: “When our homes, our social services, hospitals and outpatient clinics return to their usual activity, once the first health emergency is over, it will be time to close the wound that has spread. It will be time to highlight and revitalize the economic, cultural and social fabric of our city, as the pandemic will leave its mark on all sectors. Let's do it together, because it will be better for us as a city and as a society. ”

Since the Vitoria-Gasteiz Initiative for the Right to Housing and Social Exclusion, we do not want to return to the usual activity before the pandemic, we do not want to return to the normalcy that they had to sleep on the street because they do not have 50 neighbors and neighbors. That usual rhythm, that normality is inhumane, and clearly did not meet the needs of all the citizens of Vitoria-Gasteiz.

The wound has not spread now, but has been open for years and years, but the City Hall has only denied the existence of it. The wound will not close. The emergency resources generated during the health crisis will not be closed, but residential resources will be increased urgently and the dignity of every person will be guaranteed. We demanded this at the plenary session on 15 November, and PNV, PSE and pp refused, once again, to put aside the existence of the wound.

If we want to be stronger as a city and as a society, no one can be left behind, homeless people cannot return to the street, and from here we ask Jon Armentia to explain what will happen to the people who sleep in the gym of Pío Baroja and in the fronton of Lakua after the lockdown.

On March 16, the mayor stated that the care received by homeless people was a consequence of security measures against COVID-19.

In our opinion, if all these neighbors return to the street, it would only be understood that, instead of being considered subjects with rights, they have been treated as subjects of infection and contagion.

Let us hope that their confinement has not been done so as not to pollute the rest of the population and that it is to ensure their health and provide them with the care they deserve.

In Vitoria-Gasteiz, nobody in the alley! !