Valencia City Council has opened a climate shelter on Calle Santa Cruz de Tenerife this Friday in response to the warning of a new heat wave. However, this space will only be open on Tuesdays and Fridays, a decision that has been criticised by the opposition. Municipal sources have indicated that the decision to open only two days a week is due to the fact that there are “other social resources open every day such as Casa Caridad and shelters for the homeless” since in other years it has been found that “they have very low use during the day”.
The shelter, which is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., is primarily intended for homeless people, as pointed out by the Councillor for Social Welfare, Marta Torrado (PP), who stressed that the aim is “to assist those who suffer most from these high temperatures, especially during the hottest central hours, so that they can find in this facility a climatic refuge where they can take shelter.” The Councillor recalled that since last summer, when several heat waves were already recorded, the council “has already made drinking water fountains available to citizens so that all residents have hydration points to go to.”
For Compromís councillor Lluïsa Notario, the opening of this heat space “comes late and badly”. Notario criticises the fact that the mayor, María José Catalá, “offers a climate shelter to homeless people on 8 August, when Valencia has been registering extreme temperatures since the beginning of summer”. “We at Compromís asked her a month ago to activate the protocol for heat waves, as we had done in recent years. We even proposed to open the municipal facilities during the weekends and guarantee that public swimming pools are free of charge”, she recalls.
Sources from the city council maintain that, in addition to this, there are other resources financed by the city council and managed by NGOs that are equipped with showers and that do not close in August.
For her part, the socialist councillor Maite Ibáñez has described the limitation on opening as a “mockery” “as if the rest of the days they did not suffer from high temperatures”. “On 31 July the third heat wave was announced and on 8 August it is being proposed to open climate shelters for the homeless to which they will only be able to go on Tuesdays and Fridays as if the rest of the days it was not hot in Valencia”, she lamented. For the socialist this “contempt is added to the anti-poor ponds that are planned in the Turia River bed” and “shows that Catalá does not need Vox to take aporophobic measures”. “Every day this government becomes more shameful”, she sentenced.
The current municipal government has announced that this shelter will only be open for cold and heat emergencies and that it is based on an agreement with the previous team, so next year it will put the space out to tender in order for it to be open every day of the year as another shelter.
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The municipal social welfare officer has advised that if symptoms appear that may be caused by high temperatures, such as dryness, reddened skin, rapid pulse, headache, dizziness or confusion, for example, medical assistance should be sought.
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