“I can’t sleep in the shelter, it’s full. There is no place. We have a week. We have spent most of the night near the door, they have told us that when some seasonal workers leave, we will be able to enter”. It is told by Richard, a young man from the Congo, at the Camps Elisis in Lleida, 300 meters from Hall 3 of the Fira de Lleida, which the City Council has enabled to accommodate 122 seasonal workers.
“Here the shower is free, the coffee is also free, but you have to be signed up,” adds one of his colleagues, who prefers to speak anonymously and who, as Richard has spent a week without a place to sleep in pavilion 3. They sleep to the satin.
Richard and the five friends who accompany him are looking for work picking fruit in and around Lleida. He hopes to find it in the job market of the agrarian organization Unió de Pagesos, where he has found employment for other years. He has come to Lleida from Huelva where he has worked in other agrarian campaigns.
From the union, he ensures that all farmers who hire through Unió de Pagesos offer accommodation. “We guarantee the worker that the farmer who is going to hire them offers them accommodation, either in collective accommodation or the farmer’s own, if this is not the case, we do not manage it, unless they live less than 10 kilometers away and can travel,” he says. Salomó Torres, Vice President of Pagesos Solidaris.
The city council of Lleida opened the device on June 12 through a company that manages and offers 122 beds, showers, car laundry, luggage storage, breakfast and dinner in the pavilion. La Paeria also has 99 places in furnished housing belonging to the Municipal Urban Agenda Company (EMAU) for temporary people from the countryside in a situation of economic precariousness with a work contract who pay five euros per night.
According to the City Council, the pavilion is having a high occupancy rate, “but at the same time, there is a high turnover of people that makes it possible to serve people who come to the city every day and give a fairly quick response to demand.”
The consistory maintains that this increase has been especially evident during some days of the month of June, but currently it is at levels similar to those of last year on these same dates, which suggests that “despite the high occupancy, there there is a significant impact on an increase in the number of people who spend the night on public roads”, as verified by both street educators who go out weekly at night, as well as agents of the Urban Police.
As of this Tuesday, the single temporary assistance office has served 440 people, 385 have slept and 55 have only used the shower and luggage service. 3,177 overnight stays and 526 shower services have been registered.
75 men and four women have settled in the EMAU houses.
