Barajas’s “synthesch” are news again … and also a throwing weapon between administrations. The government has thrown all the balls outside a single goal. Or two. Those of City Hall and the Community of Madrid. «The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030 has no competences in direct attention. These situations of vulnerability (…) that are being given at the Barajas airport are exclusive competence of regional governments, ”they said yesterday from the presiding ministry Pablo Bustinduy. In this way, Moncloa’s argument goes in the same direction: an alleged lack of Madrid resources to face the situation.
The reaction from Cibeles and Sol has not been waiting. Starting with the vice mayor, Inma Sanz. First, due to the alleged lack of responsibility of the Pedro Sánchez Executive in the problem. «There are five ministries involved in airport management. The government cannot profile in a critical infrastructure, ”said Sanz. A similar diagnosis made the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayusolast Monday. «Like so many issues that pass at the airport, in so many senses, they don’t want to fix it. It is the entrance door to Madrid, to the capital of Spain, and they don’t care. But they also don’t care about all these people, ”he said.
However, Sanz pointed out a substantive problem that, according to the City Council, the Government does not assume. The City Council now has 1,200 places For homeless people and 630 places For people in “social emergency.” The latter would be destined in principle to other profiles beyond withouthogarism. For example, someone who, overnight, has lost his home. However, and as they point out from the area of government of social policies, family and equality of the City Council, chaired by José Fernández“More than half” of these 600 places are now charged by asylum applicants in Spain. “A competition that corresponds a hundred percent to the State,” they add from the area.
Thus, Sanz said that, currently, there is a “block” of municipal resources for social assistance. A “collapse” in which the Government of Spain is also responsible. As explained from Cibeles, the City Council would not have a legal obligation to facilitate a social emergency appeal to asylum plaintiffs, since this responsibility would be of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations. For humanitarian reasons, the City Council grants them that first accommodation. The problem, they add, is that social emergency places are designed for a “high rotation”: no more than 15 days per user. However, they are found that applicants are not referred to state resources until “six or eight months later.” From the Social Policies Area, they explain that they have dealt with that issue with the Secretary of State. “They have never denied it.”
«The Ministries of Interior and Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations are exclusively responsible for the attention to asylum applicants, as established by the Spanish Constitution in its article 149.1.2ª. In addition, Law 12/2009, regulator of the right of asylum and subsidiary protectionindicates that from the presentation of the application the applicant has the reception rights that in said law are recognized for access to social services managed by the State, ”said José Fernández last Friday.
Before a supposed false municipal resources, the Fernández area remembers that more than 600 of the places available for people Homeless have been created since 2019, the year in which José Luis Martínez-Almeida took the command cane in Cibeles.
With regard to the intervention at the Barajas airport, ViceAlcaldesa explained that, right now, about a hundred people (94) are being treated by the City Council. When addressing its situation, the Consistory has “street teams”, which include educators, social workers, psychologists, mediators … In total, the workforce reaches 60 people, who work in the 21 districts. And the intervention, they affirm from the City Council, is arduous. And it is that the profiles that are multiple: people with mental health problems, with addictions, with some kind of background … The work of these teams is to gain their trust, so that they can access the City Council’s resources.
Last Friday, the Councilor for Social Policies himself explained the situation. «In Barajas, multiple profiles and realities coexist: homeless people with linking with the city, asylum seekers, people passing or without any link with Madrid, whose care competence is multiple administrations. The City Council is the only one that is being part of the solution and maintains a continuous social intervention at the airport through street and social samur teams with the people on whom you have careful competence: homeless people who have a link with Madrid ».
In fact, according to José Fernández, «the solution passes, in the first place, for filiation of all the people who live or sleep at the airport to be able to offer individualized solutions from the competent administrations. The airport, as responsible for the infrastructure, is the one who must do this work and thus demanded the City Council, but for now they have not provided any information ».