Any eviction is a drama but if, as in this case, it affects 139 vulnerable people with down syndrome, autism or paralysis, it is tragic. In the Almanzor and Avantos day and residential centers in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), created by Telefónica through its ATAM association (Telephone Association for Assistance to the Disabled) in 1982 and then inaugurated by Queen Sofía, they meet every day – many for decades – José Ángel Vázquez, 42 years old and with motor cerebral palsy; José Garrote and Pilar Fernández, 33 years old, with down syndrome and who have become half-boyfriends; Jorge Manada, 39 and with autism; José Nicolás, 82 and with severe cognitive delay; or Pedro Cejuela, 59 and with down syndrome, who on April 25 demonstrated with his father and sister in front of the Telefónica headquarters at number 27 Gran Vía in Madrid, with a whistle in his mouth and shouting: “No to the closure! No to closure!”
It was the distraught “children” who announced the bad news to their families at the end of last March. “Everyone is leaving, dad!” José Ángel Vázquez said scared to his father. He had just arrived home on the road from the Almanzor Day Center, where he has been going for 36 years—since he was six—due to his cerebral palsy. His father immediately wrote a question in his notebook that was answered in writing the next day: “They close on April 29, SSH SL [la empresa que los gestiona] “It says that they are bankrupt and that the Community of Madrid will relocate the users and will help us find employment,” said the note from his guardian.
Nervousness and concern have taken over the families, many of them former Telefónica employees, who have spent decades with their children, brothers, or uncles, in these centers. Their protests in recent weeks have served to buy some time and postpone the closure for a month, until next May 31.
“Changes are fatal for these people, they are very sensitive to any modification in their life,” explains Mariluz Manada, Jorge’s sister, who has been at the center for 30 years as the son of a Telefónica employee and who calls Araceli Barceló “mom.” , his usual monitor. “A few weeks ago she has been self-harming again after years without doing so,” says Manada. “Noises, changes in wall colors, things that seem like trifles to us, are tremendously stressful for them,” she adds.
“The main basis for working on disability is routines and that is why changes, loss of relationships, absence of physical and personal references generate a strong impact and an increase in stress, anxiety and disorientation in these people, and lead to subsequently changes in behavior, disruptive behaviors, self-harm…,” says educational psychologist Juanjo Millán, director of Area 44, a center specialized in learning difficulties. “For example, the entire sensory issue greatly affects autism, any modification in light, sounds, smell, touch, color of things… increases stereotypies [movimientos involuntarios]”, he adds. “And the loss of significant relationships destabilizes them emotionally, because their stability depends on those routines, on those links of that reliable ecosystem,” she explains.
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“What is going to happen to us now?” asks Jorge, aware that they could separate him from his companions and Araceli. “Jorge has lived downtown since my mother died,” says Mariluz. “He is happy there, he goes out with me and my brothers to have a snack or on vacation, but he always prefers to return to what he considers his house, his family; others now only have the family at the center, because their relatives have died or their families cannot take care of it,” warns Manada. “My father worked all his life at Telefónica and now, even retired, he continues to pay the monthly fee of 12 euros for ATAM”, he emphasizes. “All Telefónica workers had that monthly fee removed from their payrolls, unless they objected,” he says. It was a contribution for a social purpose from a “non-profit” institution declared of Public Utility by the Council of Ministers in 1977, according to its website.
The centers and facilities of the disabled complex and the large wooded estate on which they sit belong to ATAM (Telephone Association for Assistance to the Handicapped). The association, itself, was born as a consequence of an agreement between Telefónica (then a public company) and its employees in 1974, to care for their relatives with intellectual difficulties. For this reason, between 55% and 60% of the current users of the centers they built in Pozuelo are today still direct relatives of employees of the multinational telecommunications company.
For decades, ATAM (with more than 40,000 members of companies linked to the Telefónica group, according to its website) directly managed that Pozuelo complex as a non-profit entity. But, starting in 2008, it implemented a business plan, coinciding with the implementation of the Dependency Law, according to reports from its account audits to which EL PAÍS has had access. He then began to share management with a company created ad hoc (Servicios Sociales Habilitadores SL), where it had a 51% stake. On April 29, 2015, ATAM, according to the same reports, acquired 100% of SSH SL by exchange and, that same day, transferred 100% of the shares to the NGO. ABD (Welfare and Development Association). “On May 1, 2015, SSH SL took over management of the company’s centers: two residences, a day center and an occupational center,” the audits state. Neither Telefónica, nor ATAM, nor SSH SL, nor ABD, have responded to the question about the reason for these exchanges or their objectives. And the members of the works council claim to be unaware of it despite having asked it.
![Demonstration in front of the Telefónica headquarters in Gran Vía against the closure of the centers, on April 25.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/6XM36DINDJDNBJFB5JK5JAE67M.jpg?auth=ac77bf10bfaa0f8e8759bc7b24166c6e7d8a2a38dcf94ad457aaa2a0c5fdb748&width=414)
“I’m not going to tell you anything,” the deputy director of ATAM, Teresa Alonso, responds angrily to the call from EL PAÍS. “I’m only going to answer one thing and I’m not going to answer anything else: those centers [Almanzor y Avantos] They are not managed by ATAM, and the families already have our answer,” she says after pointing out that she is responsible for the institution’s Family Assistance Service and that she will consult with her superiors if they answer the questions from this newspaper. Nobody else did. The director of ATAM is Ignacio Aizpún.
Now, when the closure of the centers is imminent and José Ángel, Pedro, Jorge, Pilar, José and another 135 families and 64 workers live in distress, Telefónica and ATAM say that “those centers no longer have anything to do with them for years: “We don’t operate them.” The management company, ABD,-SSH SL does not make any statements “because it is a very delicate issue,” according to a spokesperson. And in the Community of Madrid they are crazy looking for places to relocate those affected, some of whom have already rejected the new locations that have been suggested to them in nursing homes.
The Pozuelo complex had exemplary facilities in an idyllic natural location of 14 hectares of forest in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), which is now adjoins the largest urban development planned in the sought-after Madrid municipality. “There was school“, farm, swimming pool, tennis court, medical services, security, activities (dance, theater…), garden…”, recalls Maribel Albarrán, also the daughter of another Telefónica worker and niece of José Nicolás, 82 years old, who has spent half his life in this center, where he has a collection of tapes cassettes of all time, his passion apart from Atleti.
Faced with the confusion, the absence of official communications, and the fear for the suffering of “the children”, the relatives organized themselves via WhatsApp and sent a series of questions to those responsible. To ATAM, as founders, managers and owners of the land and facilities of the complex. To the Community of Madrid, as financier of the service for the 139 users of these centers since 2008. And to ABD-SSH SL as successors of ATAM in management.
The answers came to them in dribs and drabs. First in the form of a letter: “Despite the efforts made and the financial sacrifices of recent years, we have reached an extreme situation that prevents us from continuing to manage the centers and which has led us to their closure. We have spoken with the General Directorate of People with Disabilities of the Community of Madrid, who will contact you to proceed with the relocation of the users,” signed the CEO of ABD, María de los Ángeles Guiteras, on March 20. Masters.
In the General Directorate of Dependency of the Community of Madrid they clarify in a written message in response to questions from EL PAÍS: “The Community of Madrid is already assigning new locations for the 139 users with intellectual disabilities of the Residence with Avantos Occupational Center and of the Almanzor Day Center and Residence, both owned by Servicios Sociales Habilitadores SL.” And they point out: “This action is carried out due to the unilateral decision of this company to close these centers, on May 31, due to a management problem, completely unrelated to the Community of Madrid.” To conclude by adding: “The Department of Family, Youth and Social Affairs has always paid in a timely manner the financing of the 139 places arranged with this entity”, thus making it clear that the only thing it does is pay what is stipulated by each user.
“ATAM, the social and disability care arm of Telefónica, has been gradually hiding under that business framework,” says a veteran worker of the association who has seen the “progressive dismantling” and who, like many, does not want to give his name for fear of workplace reprisals. Many of the 64 employees have mileurist salaries.
Families, users and workers have mobilized and met with representatives of all the parties involved, without anyone having given them a satisfactory and adequate solution for those mainly affected. In recent weeks they have demonstrated at the Telefónica headquarters on Gran Vía, in front of its glass doors, closed and under construction, where it reads: “We are transforming the place where it all began for you.”
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