If Gonzalo presumes something is of being a worker in capital letters. He started with 15 years washing dishes in a bingo hall. This is how he started his career in the hospitality industry, a sector that he is passionate about and that It has allowed him to reach the top by forming part, as a waiter, of the Royal Household service. His salary and that of his wife have allowed them to live comfortably for years. “We have never asked for help, we have never seen ourselves in that need, but we have seen ourselves that way now because of this pandemic,” he points out to the Chronicles team for the report “We are Tribe.”
First it was a stroke that left him paralyzed for a year and lost his job. They asked their bank for help to be able to face the mortgage they subscribed, when the bank began to apply default interest. The salary of Laura, his wife, went directly to the mortgage, but did not come to pay the full monthly payment.
“It is maddening to see how my wife goes crazy doing accounts“
“It is exasperating to see my wife go crazy doing accounts, and see that she cries, that she collapses because they are our children or getting up in the morning without knowing if the next day my children will have a place to be,” explains Gonzalo. With the pandemic his wife also lost her job. For months they and their three children have survived on a pension of 600 euros. Only the mortgage was already 900. The delay costs have caused that, after spending 13 years paying his house, currently owe the bank 40,000 euros more than the amount they initially ordered. They do not refuse to pay, but they do ask for a social rent that they can assume so as not to end up on the street.
Gonzalo and Laura, his wife, are worried about an eviction letter coming to them. CHRONICLES
“It’s hard to see that you have a middle class all of a sudden everything falls apart,” adds Gonzalo, while assuring that they fear that the day the eviction letter will arrive: “That day my wife will leave, my children will leave, but me … . they will have to take me ahead “.
Evictions despite moratoriums
“In Vallecas there have been hundreds of evictions so far this year,” says José Luis de la Flor, a member of the Platform for those Affected by the Mortgage of Vallecas. Evictions carried out despite the moratorium established by the government during the state of alarm. Many have moved on due to the impossibility of obtaining vulnerability reports through social services, an indispensable condition to be able to paralyze an eviction with the Royal Decree. “It is really a tense situation that if we are living it right now, when the moratorium on evictions disappears we will have a serious social problem I don’t know how the institutions are going to deal with it, “says José Luis.
Vallecas is the most vulnerable district in Madrid, with the highest unemployment rate. CHRONICLES
He predicts that September is going to be a month of great social conflict. Housing will also be joined by the end of ERTE, some may become ERE, a scenario, he says, of great pain for many families.
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‘We are a tribe’, the lifeline when aid does not arrive.
Without help from social services, middle-class families like Gonzalo’s have seen their economy not reach the most basic, food. ‘We are Tribe’ it has become the only help they have received in months. Help, in the form of food, which they get through donations and thanks to the work of 1,500 people who collaborate in the support network between neighbors. An idea that came from Mari Mar and Víctor, the driving force behind ‘Somos Tribu’.
“We were not born to replace social services“
One year after its creation, it is clear that this support network is essential in neighborhoods like Vallecas. “We were not born to replace social services, nor are we a resource that they can use, but it is true that there are things that the Administration does not reach and we do “, aim. Hence the motto, it says: “Only the people save the people”. The social services have been overwhelmed and have not fulfilled their mission, especially in districts like this one that occupies the number one position in the vulnerability ranking of the city council.
Graffiti on a wall in the Vallecas neighborhood. CHRONICLES
Mariví Martín coordinates one of the five pantries and remembers that ‘Somos Tribu’ was born out of a specific need. “We thought this was going to be for a short time, but, given what we have seen, now the big problems are beginning to arise because there were people who had some savings that has already disappeared, “he explains. will continue to the foot of the canyon so that no neighbor lacks something to eat. Although he points out that they would like not to have to be here because that would mean that everything is working.
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We are Tribu VK European Citizen Award
The European Parliament has awarded ‘We are a Tribe’, the 2020 European Citizen Award. A recognition that has served to boost the efforts of these neighbors to create support networks. “While at home neighborhood movements are taken away, you receive recognition from outside that is telling you that the residents of Madrid are doing well. Perhaps this will help governments rethink the need to invest in citizen participation“, underlines Mari Mar. We will have to wait to see if this wish is fulfilled.
The volunteers of “Somos Tribu” receive fresh food for their pantries at the market. CHRONICLES
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