Cars become home to casualties in Spain

PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) – When the social worker called to tell Javier Irure that he was being evicted, the 65-year-old Spaniard could not determine that he could become homeless after five decades of manual labor.

“I grabbed some clothes, some books and other stuff, wrapped them in a sheet and said to myself, ‘I have one more roof to put over my head: my car,'” Irure said from within. the old Renault Clio compact said. it has been his shelter for the past three months.

Irure is one of the many economic victims of the coronavirus pandemic. He managed to avoid COVID-19, but the slowdown in labor caused by restrictions on movement and social activities imposed by the Spanish government to control the spread of the virus was fatal to his financial stability.

Irure, who started working as a hotel shop at the age of 13, was working as a professional cleaner when the pandemic hit Spain last year and dried up its revenue streams. It was not long before Irure was evicted from his rental apartment.

He tried to get help from public social services, but he relied on help from local charity group Ayuda Mutua.

“You feel like a pendulum” dealing with the official bureaucracy, Irure said. “Going from one window to another, from calls never answered to vague promises.”

The pandemic has particularly hit the Spanish economy due to its dependence on tourism and the services sector. The country’s left-wing government has maintained a further program to reduce the impact, but more than a million jobs have been wiped out.

While close-knit families support many citizens who would otherwise be poor, the restriction of people at home also has a strain on Spanish family life, as seen in an increase in divorce rates. The breakdown of households has left more individuals on their own.

The Catholic aid organization Cáritas Española said earlier this month that about half a million people, or 26% of all its aid recipients, had been issuing aid since the start of the pandemic. Since the pandemic, Cáritas has opened 13 centers dedicated to the homeless.

Like Jimure, Juan Jiménez had no choice but to live in his car, a used Ford where he slept for almost a year.

Jiménez, 60, saw his mortgage payments get out of control and his marriage fell apart after he and his wife bought a larger home. The 620 euros ($ 740) he has received in government aid in recent months has gone to his seven children, he said.

“I dream of having all my kids under one roof, but it’s better that I’m here,” Jiménez said. “They have their lives, and I would just be a problem.”

Jiménez and Irure move their cars from one parking lot to another on the outskirts of the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, ​​where they once owned houses. They do this in order not to draw attention to themselves.

“When I wake up in the morning, I ask myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ Says Jiménez from his car, which is cluttered with clothes, blankets and suitcases with everything he owns.

“We are invisible beings. Nobody wants to look at us. “Nobody wants to know anything about us,” he said. “We do not exist.”

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AP author Joseph Wilson contributed to this Barcelona report.

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