The hostel serves an average of about 170 passers-by per year

He Red Cross shelter in alcoyIt serves an average of about 170 passers-by per year. The facility is opening its doors every day due to the low temperatures that are being registered throughout these last weeks.

As a general rule, the day center Red Cross It opens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to serve people who need to clean up or wash their clothes. They are also offered breakfast, lunch and provided hygiene kits and shelter.

The shelter is open every night, but each passerby can only use it once, that is, not continuously. However, since the yellow alert was decreed on January 16 for strong gusts of wind and icy frosts that have been taking place these days accompanied by subzero temperatures have prompted the Red Cross to open the shelter to stay up all night without limits.

Thus, from mid-January to today they would have been 13 people who have used the overnight service. While Monday, Wednesday and Friday would be 12 users who come to the day center to carry out essential tasks.

He director of the Alcoy Red Cross, Pablo Granados, assures that the cases during the week “are controlled” and that they are people who come “regularly”. In this sense, Granados assures that the users who come to the shelter for the kits they have reserved or to wash their clothes is because in their place of residence “they do not have electricity or water to do so.” In addition, these people undergo social and health monitoring, that is, medicine review, For example.

Granados has highlighted that “a homeless person is not only the one who lives on the street, but also the one who is in a patera or squatter apartment”.

Los kits offered to homeless people are different from those provided to users who do have a home to settle in, since the one offered to the former is pre-cooked while the latter can be cooked at home.

In this sense, one of the objectives of the organization is that users who go to the Red Cross avoid being “excluded from the socio-sanitary system”.

The management of the organization in Alcoy assures that the majority of the people who frequent the center are mensince only one in ten would be women and the age would be between 50 and 70 years. Regarding nationalities, those who use the hostel the most are the Spanish people.

Although the center also welcomes people from Germany, Senegal, Romania, Mexico, Morocco, Ecuador, Portugal, Algeria, The Gambia, Italy, Colombia, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Serbia.

The forecast is that the center, located in the Renfe station, will remain open until the frost and low temperatures give a truce in the Alcoy area, according to management sources.

Granados, director of the Red Cross in Alcoy, took the opportunity to indicate to this newspaper that “the esnogarism It is a phenomenon that has to be addressed from many perspectives and work together in all areas so that the most vulnerable people can get out of this situation as soon as possible”.

volunteers

Likewise, the Red Cross shelter currently has 10 people between technicians and volunteers who carry out customer service tasks. There is always at least one person in the hostel.

The services of the Red Cross shelter are carried out in collaboration with the Alcoy City Council and Social Services. To go to the facility, the person can be referred by the same Social Services in certain cases or have a pass from the Local Police to spend the night.