Vitoria (EFE).- Cáritas has warned that severe poverty becomes invisible in Euskadi.
Thus, the “social fracture” is becoming more and more aggravated in the Basque Country, society is “increasingly unequal” and hides it better.
In 2022, Cáritas Euskadi served a total of 34,288 people in a situation of exclusion, 1,859 more than in 2021.
It represents a 5.7% increase compared to the previous year.
It adds to the 17% that those attended had already risen in 2020, according to the balance made public this Tuesday.
These are figures that are “very bad news”, as Ramón Ibeas, general secretary of Cáritas Vitoria, explained at a press conference.
Ibeas has insisted that he did not want to make a “catastrophic” speech
Cáritas calculates that severe poverty affects 9% of the population
“The economic situation has improved, there are more services and more tax collection. With this, 80 percent of the Basque population feels that things are going better, but with the economic improvement, saying that there are things that are going wrong begins to bother us, and we must insist”.
And it is that of the remaining 20% of the population, 10.4% remain in relative poverty and 9.6% in severe poverty.
Responsible for Caritas in Vitoria. EFE/David Aguilar
The profile of the people served continues to be that of a woman, a foreigner and alone: ”Poverty is feminine and immigrant”, described Ibeas.
She has highlighted that many of these women end up “condemned to domestic services, although some even have university degrees.”
In fact, having a job no longer necessarily entails improving the quality of life and getting out of poverty.
Maite Sebal, director of Cáritas Vitoria, has described the difficulties faced by the families served and has placed access to and maintenance of housing as one of the biggest problems.
Thus, the families cared for by Cáritas dedicate more than half of their income to paying for housing.
In turn, almost half of the economic aid given by Cáritas is used to maintain housing.
The obstacles to get out of poverty
Those responsible for Cáritas have also criticized the obstacles to regularizing the administrative situation of immigrants.
They are a consequence of the immigration law and bureaucratic difficulties.
“There is no right to have to wait four or five months for an appointment with the Police to request asylum, or to wait six months to benefit from the changes in the RGI,” Ibeas added.
Faced with these problems, the Catholic association has proposed activating housing policies as a basic need, addressing the inequality that the increase in the digital divide causes by recovering face-to-face public service, and controlling the underground economy, which exploits immigrants and refugees.
At the press conference there was also talk about the reception of refugees from the Ukrainian war, a flow that is “calmer. The movement of people has decreased, although the war continues”.
Finally, the Bishop of Vitoria, Juan Carlos Elizalde, has presented the campaign on the occasion of Charity Day under the slogan “You have a lot to do with it” that will take place this Sunday, the 11th.
That day the parishes will offer their collections to support the activity of Cáritas. EFE