[ad_1]
Six months after the declaration of the state of emergency, the number of people receiving state food aid has been increasing. From 60 thousand people supported in March by the Operational Program to Support the Most Needy People (POAPMC), they went to almost 100 thousand in August. The September data is not yet closed, but in total the program has already supported 117,000 people. These can be supported in non-consecutive months, be in the program for a month, leave and then return, explains the Social Security Institute (ISS), which provided the data.
In June, the government announced that it would double support for this program and increase its budget by € 20 million.
The Food Emergencies Network is also supporting 60,000 more people than before the pandemic, now numbering 440,000. However, Isabel Jonet, president of the Food Bank against Hunger, which manages this network, says there was a decline in new orders, which peaked in March and April, with 191 and 353 new orders daily, respectively.
Today the numbers are far from that, but after a steep decline in May to 31 new daily orders, they started to rise from September 21, with the latest records of 48 new daily orders. Still, they are a far cry from the roughly 50 monthly orders that food banks received in January. Each order can correspond to several people.
But Isabel Jonet believes that, from now on, “we are going to see an increase in needs”: “There is an agonizing uncertainty.” With the end of summer closed some businesses and services related to tourism, layoffs are in sight. And people start taking precautions, he believes. However, she does not believe that the figures reach the levels of the beginning of the confinement. “At that time, people were shocked by the sudden slowdown in the economy, they ran out of income and couldn’t work. Today there are moratoriums, support for social security; Restaurants, gyms, fairs were opened, reducing activity and readjusting their size, but that’s how it was. Psychologically, everything is over and you don’t know when you can resume, it’s tremendous ”. Plus, there’s “a black economy at work,” with people doing odd jobs to supplement support, she says.
Caritas only supports half of those who seek them
In the first half of the year, 50,000 people came to Caritas: of these, they managed to serve only 26,100 people, that is, half. “THE boom it took place in April and May, but the number of people remains constant, ”says the president, Eugénio Fonseca. “There were no new cases, but there was an increase in orders. And people seek support more often because they earn less and less income and face the burdens of the day to day. They could take income for a month but they appear more frequently, it shows that they are more impoverished. The poor are getting poorer and those who are not, are getting poorer, ”he says.
Nationwide, Caritas saw a 40% increase in requests for help in the running of the bulls. AMI also says that the number of new cases increased by 55% in the deflation phase, having supported 5,000 people in the first half.
Manuel Carvas Guedes, president of the Porto Central Council of the Society of S. Vicente de Paulo, points out a change in the photograph: at first the crisis had not come “as quickly inland” as in the great center, but now it is The trend has changed and there are requests to reach out to the interior parishes. Last year they supported some 7,600 families, at the beginning of the pandemic the president said they were supporting some 24,000 families, many of them “people they never needed.” At the moment he does not know exactly how many families he supports, but he does know that “small family businesses have been affected.” On the other hand, “there is more work at conferences but fewer people” to do it.
Renata Alves, director of the Vida e Paz Community, which aims to encourage homeless people to leave the streets, says that they continue to distribute the same amount of meals, about 550 a day. Some unemployed people come to ask for food, many of them young. He estimates that the number of people coming to Lisbon from other cities where tourism was “on the move” will increase, and he also points out that there are already more tents on the street.
And the debts?
And from now on? Eugénio Fonseca praises the Government’s measures to “stop” the difficult situation of many families, who could live in “more drastic situations”, but leaves the alert: “There are people who have no income, the only one who has is Social Income Insertion ( RSI), which does not solve the needs, especially in urban centers where rents have risen scandalously ”.
He stresses: “People are not told how to pay off their debts, that is, rent, electricity, gas and water. When the moratoriums end, they will keep their debts, in addition to having to pay what they consume. I am very concerned about the indebtedness of the families ”.
Sandra Araújo, from the European Network to Combat Poverty, recalls that the number of beneficiaries of the IHR has increased, with another 12 thousand people accessing this support; unemployment too, especially among the young. “Everything indicates that the crisis situation will deepen and will have very serious consequences for the population. There is a lot of precarious employment. The restaurant and hotel sector has been affected, it employs many people and there are forecasts of a worsening “.
Although he praises the Government’s efforts, mainly in terms of support for leave or for the self-employed, it highlights the “concern” for “people who are not covered in any way by maintenance”. He defends the creation of a minimum income and does not doubt: “Everyone predicts that the situation will get worse. The numbers have added up, people are scared. There will be a retraction and small businesses will probably not be able to resist. This will open a very large gap again ”, he underlines, recalling that in Portugal there is a high percentage of workers – 10% – poor. “Even when they work, they are in poverty. There are structural causes that imply structural measures ”.
The president of Cáritas is concerned about the number of people who will become unemployed, ceasing to contribute to Social Security and losing retirement benefits. It is also concerned about the fact that those who have lost their jobs lose social contact and the consequences that this entails, that is, on mental health. “We know that we are going to face an economic crisis worse than the previous one because the scale will be worldwide and the pillows that could come from other countries will not be so big. I am very worried about what will happen and from October. We will begin to have signals because companies will make decisions: continue or close. We will have restrictions. Tourism will not appear. The strongest part [do plano de recuperação social] It has to be the fight against poverty, but the social plan goes further, it has to go to support the elderly. We cannot be paralyzed by a pandemic and defend outdated systems. We have to defend the people ”.
