The Valencia City Council Since Monday, it has a new resource to assist the homeless, especially on these cold winter nights. It is owned by the Ciutat Vella Hostel and will be managed by Red Cross. It has a capacity for 50 people, although if necessary it could be expanded to 90.
The center is prepared to serve this especially vulnerable group in this pandemic situation of coronavirus. Not only because they cannot have a home where they can comply with the confinement, but because they are people who tend to suffer from different chronic diseases, especially of respiratory origin, which is usually a risk factor added to covid-19.
The Councilor for Social Services, Isa Lozano, explains that this center will have a trained nurse to test these people for the coronavirus before they are referred to other municipal resources.
Listen to Isa Lozano (Social Welfare): “We open a new shelter for homeless people” in Play SER
Hostel features
The new shelter has isolation areas for covid cases, equipped with remote assistance and monitoring equipment, which allow it to offer adequate attention to the needs of users who, in the event of severe symptoms, will be referred to health resources; but when they are mild or asymptomatic, they can keep their recovery and quarantine period there.
Users will have a health monitoring and attention to their basic needs, and they will be offered psychosocial care and intervention tools. The expected profile is homeless people and families who have been deprived of housing, derived from the CAST (Care Center for Homeless People) and the SAUS (Social Emergency Care Service).
The center will offer accommodation, food, isolation, social intervention, psychological support, 24-hour surveillance, supply of hygiene kits and clothing, carrying out PCR tests, monitoring and permanent health care, as well as leisure and free time themes. The team will consist of two social workers, a psychologist, a nurse, and five social mediator specialists, in addition to the Red Cross volunteer team, which will be in support of all these tasks.
The Ciutat Vella Hostel joins the municipal center for climatic emergencies, which opened last winter on Calle Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which has 25 new places with a dining room, kitchen, bathrooms and showers. Right now, Valencia has 274 places to attend to the homeless, between those financed by the City Council and those offered by social entities. According to the latest data available to the City Council, the number of “homeless” has increased in the last year. According to the count of the Local Police, in April there were 974 people, 271 of them on the street, and 713 housed.
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