Alleviate the problems of social exclusion caused by the difficult access to housing for the most vulnerable families. With this objective, the Amancio Ortega Foundation and Cáritas have launched the initiative A house, a home that will improve the situation of 15,000 people. The Foundation will contribute 15 million euros and the validity of the agreement is for two years.
The agreement comes at a time of maximum urgency with a problem, that of housing, which affects many strata of the population but which affects the most vulnerable. Without going any further, last year Cáritas invested 12.6 million euros in housing aid for more than 10,000 people. With this new agreement, 15,000 more vulnerable people will be able to assume the payment of rent or supplies, as well as condition their homes to optimize their energy efficiency.
The Amancio Ortega Foundation, this time together with the Red Cross, have also signed a collaboration agreement that will allow 26,000 older people from all over Spain to have voice devices to promote autonomy and avoid loneliness problems. And it is that the unwanted loneliness and isolation that affects the elderly are situations that worry the entities that work with these groups. The initiative, which will make it possible to provide 26,000 more devices as of September, started as a pilot program between August 2020 and March 2021, in the midst of a pandemic. The project includes monitoring tasks and, in addition to the installation of voice devices, online connection if necessary.
The use of these voice devices, as a complement to the accompaniment tasks, demonstrated a significant improvement in the autonomy of those served, explained the Red Cross in a note provided to the media. The users themselves claimed to feel more accompanied and notice a relief from their loneliness.
