“The migrant population and, above all, families in an irregular situation, have had to run from the towns. They have lost everything: cars, houses, friends and loved ones.. They have no roof over their heads, but the fear of living at ground zero, full of firefighters, police and soldiers, has pushed them to leave. I’m telling you this so you can get an idea of what it means to not have the documentation in order…”, explains to Public Boutaina El Hadri, spokesperson for Casa Morocco and vice president of the Valencian Immigration Council. The housing crisis had been expelling residents with fewer resources from the center of the capital for months; ended up “vulnerabilizing” them completely. Many looked for an alternative, more or less dignified, in the municipalities of l’Horta Sud: Paiporta, Catarroja, Albal either Benetusser. DANA finished dismembering their lives; leaving them immersed in a spiral of precariousness from which they do not know how or when they will be able to escape.
The labyrinth of bureaucratic procedures and lack of information They are two of the main problems for families affected by floods; even more so when they are at risk of social exclusion. “The administration treats us as if we were criminals, when we only come in search of work and a dignified life. Racism takes away any minimal opportunity, even during a catastrophe,” says Jeny Rivera, a Honduran in Massanassa. Oxfam Intermón has denounced that the most vulnerable groups run the risk of being left out of aid due to the effects of DANA. The migrant people and those who have not yet managed to regularize their situation; sex workers, homeless people and families who lived in rented rooms find it practically impossible to access these subsidies.
The Generalitat Valenciana and the Government of Spain have announced a deployment of aid for the residents of the towns devastated by the storm. Martina, a sex worker in the province of Valencia, criticizes the management of “all” administrations: “Migrant colleagues and those who do not have a rental contractthey cannot request anything. The little help we have requires that we leave our job. If we resume activity, they take our money. We are sold, everywhere“, he acknowledges during a call with this newspaper. Vulnerable groups try to avoid any procedure with the administrations, despite needing their protection. They do it out of fear; They fear for their future.
“The social umbrella does not cover people with an irregular administrative situation. The most vulnerable families, those who had the most precarious lives, lived on the ground floor and first floors of ground zero; even in storage rooms and garages. We have people who worked in b, without contract; people who have registered where they could and do not appear in the addresses that they have now lost. How are they going to recover the little they had? This is a tragedy“, claims Silvana Cabrera, spokesperson for Regularization Now in the Valencian Country. The platform has begun by responding to vital questions, such as house cleaning and distribution of water, food and medication. The work now focuses on advising and accompanying the affected people, defending them from the “criminalizing eye.”
The ‘habit’ of starting from scratch
Jeny Rivera (46 years old) came to Massanassa in search of “a better future” for her three children, “far from poverty and violence” that permeated Honduras. The house in which she lived with ten other people – including her four-month-old granddaughter – had two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and living room. On Tuesday, October 29, it was shattered. “We had been trying to rent something better for several months, with more space for everyone, but since we do not have documentation, because we have been here less than two years, it was being complicated. The house became uninhabitable, we cannot return, and we have three small children. We do not ask for anything to be given to us; just work, to have economic capacity and find a place to live,” he acknowledges, with his voice breaking.
Jeny and her sister are the only ones who brought money homein addition to what they received in the wallet cards of Social Services. The family, “fortunately”, managed to leave the home before the water reached the roof and has not suffered personal injuries. “The problem does not only affect people in an irregular situation. Foreign citizens who have lost their documentation, for example, have to process it again to be able to access subsidies. The administrations are putting points in the affected towns to renew the DNI , but not the NIE. The migrant population has to move no matter what, come to Valencia“says Boutaina El Hadri. Humanitarian NGOs ask that the next government decrees include “specific measures” to respond to “forgotten groups.”
Diana Mantuano works as a caregiver in Catarroja. DANA didn’t catch her at homebut yes to her husband. “The door couldn’t open and we live in a basement; we have videos. The house is worthless; the flood destroyed everything. The walls have fallen and we had to throw away the furniture, only the beams remain.“, he says, from ground zero of the disaster. The home insurance had expired, supposedly due to an accumulation of non-payments, but the family claims that they had no evidence. The couple has also lost their two cars.. “The next few months are going to be hard, I don’t even know where to start… We have to raise enough money to fix the house, how are we going to look for another one if the rents are through the roof?” the woman asks. Diana and her husband arrived from Ecuador two decades agowhen his three children were still small.
“We’re fine, it could have been much worse,” Amin Terbah (40 years old) answers on the other end of the phone. The building in which he lives, in Albal, has two floors: a bass, for his parents and his disabled brother; and a first floor, for him, his wife and three children. “The ground floor area is worthless, we have only been able to recover four things, memories and photos from when we were little…”, he consoles himself. DANA coincided with her birthday; His family, in fact, was waiting for him for dinner. “My children had come down to buy me a gift and as soon as they came up, in a matter of minutes, the flood came,” he continues. The children have not been able to return to school, because the classrooms are still damaged, but they hope to return to normal soon: “We arrived from Algeria 25 years ago, looking for work. We had to separate ourselves from our family and friends, start from scratch. “We have it in our blood and we know that the same thing can happen again.”
The number of people at risk of social exclusion in the Country Valencia It exceeds the national average by four points, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The rate of working povertyFurthermore, it is close to 13.8% in the primary sector and among domestic workers, two activities with a high presence of migrants and people in an irregular situation. “We cannot make the same mistakes again as during the pandemic. It is irresponsible to think about rebuilding the populations that have been devastated by DANA without a feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial perspective“concludes Silvana Cabrera, spokesperson for the Regularización Now platform.
#Doubly #vulnerable #families #resources #lost #DANA
