More than a hundred homeless people and about five thousand people with economic needs were identified in 2015 in the Algarve, denounces DECO.
In order to avoid disastrous financial consequences, indebted Algarve consumers or those at risk of indebtedness may turn to the Over-indebtedness Support Office (GAS) of the Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection (DECO), in its Algarve delegation, located in Faro.
According to the Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection “there is a high increase in the financial fragility of Algarve families”, revealing “a deterioration in the situation compared to 2014”.
DECO adds that "the majority of this population is made up of people of working age and currently unemployed."
The association also underlines “the increase, quite high and sudden, of the senior population that shows economic needs, mainly due to the support provided to their children, in many cases unemployed or over-indebted, to whom they offer financial support, housing or even accountability for the payment of debts, as guarantors'.
Citing the national panorama, DECO emphasizes that the phenomenon of family indebtedness is transversal and independent of income levels or educational qualifications, «there is even an increase in the number of families in a fragile economic situation that previously belonged to the middle class or the upper middle class of society».
The support provided by GAS is «directed to people in financial difficulties who are unable to meet their debts, due to involuntary situations, such as unemployment, salary cuts or loss of income, prolonged illness or accident and alteration of the household'.
This support is only intended for natural persons (consumers and their families), with a clear impossibility to cover all their non-professional debts.
Non-professional debts can be defined as those resulting from financial commitments made to credit institutions (banks or financial entities) or other creditors (suppliers of electricity, gas, water, telecommunications, etc.).
The support provided by GAS seeks to ensure the prevention of over-indebtedness, the rehabilitation of the over-indebted socio-economic situation and the economic orientation of the consumer.
Comments