Miguel Martín I Almería, (EFE) José, a town from Nijare, a performance that has tinged the province of Almería with controversy in recent months.
The road map is clear for the Consistory and it was communicated this Friday in a note: the immigrants who reside there will be cared for in an Emergency Reception and Referral Center with the collaboration of different NGOs, and from there they will be referred to the ” temporary housing solutions.
According to the local government, in the first center they will be provided with accommodation and meals while each case is individually re-evaluated. The purpose of these personalized studies is to develop the integration itinerary for each individual before they are referred to a “temporary rental housing solution”.
This intermediate process will last, according to initial forecasts, up to a maximum of two months. In the rehousing manual for the first phase of the action with the residents of ‘El Walili’, on the same shanty town, psychological assistance and mediation technicians, health personnel, firefighters and State Security Forces and Corps will participate.
the dwellings
On a plot in the neighborhood of ‘Los Grillos’, a development of 62 affordable rental homes is being built to be used as temporary accommodation for seasonal workers, with a subsidy of 1,547,351 euros corresponding to the third call for the Program for Promotion of the Rental of the Junta de Andalucía.
“The construction of houses becomes the best tool to combat shantytowns associated with intensive agriculture,” said the Minister of Public Works, Maifrán Carazo (PP), in February of last year during a visit with the mayoress of Níjar, Esperanza Pérez (PSOE), to the works of these transitory accommodations for the rehousing of people in social exclusion.
With these houses it is intended to eradicate settlements such as ‘El Cruce’, ‘Los Nietos’, ‘Los Albaricoques’, ‘El Nazareno’ or ‘El Walili’.
It was, therefore, a known measure and also the result of work that the local government has been developing since 2021 with the University of Granada, NGOs (Red Cross, Cepaim, Almería Acoge, Médicos del Mundo and Hermanas Mercedarias), as well as with organizations of the agricultural sector.
The controversy
However, in December the first protests began. The Association for Human Rights of Andalusia (APDHA) was one of the first to ask the City Council to stop the eviction and demolish the settlement, until a permanent housing alternative is guaranteed for the 500 people who live there.
Hand in hand with the Soc-SAT union, roadblocks were carried out and, subsequently, the Right to a Roof Platform, made up of different social, union and political organizations from Almería, has brought together the main actions against the eviction of the settlement, always under the argument that there is no real alternative for these people.
Last Thursday, the delegate of the Government of the Junta in Almería, Aránzazu Martín (PP), pointed out in this line that the houses under construction to accommodate seasonal workers “are not yet finished”, although they are underway and “are very advanced ». The City Council believes that in the two months of margin in the Emergency and Referral Reception Center they may be completed.
all guarantees
The Right to Roof Platform went this Friday to the provincial headquarters of the PSOE in Almería in one of the last attempts to stop the eviction. The general secretary of the Almería socialists, Juan Antonio Lorenzo, however, showed his party’s support for the eviction of a “pioneering and necessary project in the province of Almería”, which will be carried out with “guarantees”.
This does not happen with other parties such as Podemos or even the Catholic Church itself, but also part of the NGOs that have collaborated with Níjar and stand out. Almería Acoge, the Cepaim Foundation, the Mercedarian Sisters and Médicos del Mundo recognize that “efforts, resources and sincere dedication have been invested that perhaps have not produced all the desirable results”.
The only non-governmental organization that has remained firm is the Red Cross, whose coordinator, Francisco Vicente, assured this Friday that the entity works with the local government and the rest of the entities in this project to find resources with a “minimum of dignity” for that these people can develop their life as up to now.
How many people are in “El Walili”
Another question is how many people actually reside in ‘El Walili’. According to APDHA, the Soc-SAT or the Right to Roof Platform, there are 500, but the Consistory maintains that a little more than 200 people have been identified who meet the requirements to be able to opt for one of the alternative accommodations that are under construction in the neighborhood of ‘Los Grillos’.
They have explained to EFE that a series of personal notifications have been carried out after the preparation of a list to determine who really lives in the El Wailili settlement, located on the side of the road in the Nijareña town of San José.
A little more than 240 people who meet the requirements to be able to opt for one of the alternative accommodations have been identified, the same whose name is published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on November 11. EFE