The smell of new things, new, is what hits us right at the entrance. But it doesn't take long before the decor, careful and modern, with cheerful colors, enters through the eyes. These are the new shared residences for homeless people created by the Câmara de Tavira and whose official inauguration took place last week.
At first, there were four people who settled in one of the two houses recovered and prepared to integrate the “TMN – Tua, Minha, Nossa” project, which MAPS – Support Movement for AIDS Problems and the District Center for Social Security , with the support of the Government, are being developed in partnership with five municipalities in the Algarve, namely Tavira.
But soon, another apartment prepared for this purpose will be put to use, allowing six more people who are homeless to share a house and call it home.
This new response "has a component of social transition," he told the Sul Informação Ana Paula Martins, Mayor of Tavira, on the sidelines of the official opening session of these spaces, which was attended by Ana Mendes Godinho, Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security.
“We will monitor them closely and the idea is that they can create skills, that they can be helped to find a job, to obtain training, if they need it, so that they can become autonomous,” said the mayor.
All this will be done with the support of MAPS, an institution that has been working for decades with the homeless population, namely in their reintegration into society.
The four people who share one of the two houses that the Câmara de Tavira prepared in the historic center, located next to the River Gilão, were all "homeless and were already signposted", he explained to Sul Informação Fábio Simão, president of MAPS.
These people have «the opportunity to make a journey, which starts with Novas Oportunidades, which is a dormitory. From here, the beneficiaries move to the apartments, where we start working with them».
"The aim of the municipality is that we can, in the future, integrate, even the most difficult cases, into social housing apartments, a more definitive solution, without a deadline," added Fábio Simão.
«We have here a large construction, a good assembled skeleton, to be able to solve problems, even those more complex situations», believes the MAPS president, who considers that Tavira «is an example, because he has a very structured answer».
Tavira's strategy to respond to those who live on the streets began to be assembled some time ago.
“We started this strategy of working with homeless people in 2019. In October of that year, we set up the Homeless Planning and Intervention Center (NPISA) in Tavira, which includes 13 institutions, including MAPS and Social Security», he told our newspaper Ana Paula Martins.
“From then on, we went out into the street to look for situations that, at first sight, didn't seem to be that many. We identified about 20 people. Later, we did another round and the number rose to 42», added the mayor.
From the moment the diagnosis was made, the Chamber of Tavira moved towards the elaboration of an action strategy, which «goes through the dimensions of emergency, transition and social insertion».
As this is an especially vulnerable population and with very different life histories, there are different levels of responses.
“We created the regulation of shared residences and housed ten people in municipal housing apartments. Each room houses two people, who are then monitored by our social action technicians,” he said.
In this case, the beneficiaries are former homeless “who developed more skills and could already be in a situation of accommodation in buildings where we have other social housing units”.
«Later on, we built the so-called New Opportunities Centre, for overnight stays, which operates from 21:00 pm to 9:00 am, where we respond to people who are on the street and who have had difficulties in integrating. You can sleep and bathe in this space», illustrated Ana Paula Martins.
This infrastructure, which is located in the same row of one-story houses in the social housing district where the transitional shared residences were created, can be seen more as an emergency response, for more complicated cases.
However, it was also possible to “integrate people into therapeutic communities”.
“Right now, of the 42 identified situations, there are three still on the streets and no new situations have arisen. We are very happy with this response that we have been building since 2019», revealed the Mayor of Tavira.
What is certain is that «there are already some cases of success».
“Right now, we have a couple in an apartment, where you are pregnant. A little while ago, the technicians were here reporting the emotional moment that was their arrival at the house, when they saw the conditions», said Ana Paula Martins.
“Basically, it's the realization of a dream, because it's a couple who have been living in complicated situations,” he stressed.
Even those who are in social housing apartments, in what is the last step of the journey of insertion into society, «are often people who only needed a little help, because they have jobs or have reforms, but for this or for that reason, they had difficulties».
“We even have a man who was homeless for many years, who has now taken on a leadership role in the building where he lives and is fully integrated. He's the one who cleans the common areas and everyone respects him. Sometimes it just takes a little click», believes Ana Paula Martins.
At the end of her visit to the new shared residences and to the Novas Oportunidades space, Ana Mendes Godinho considered that what she had just seen is «exemplary from the point of view of what is being done here in the Algarve».
The Algarve region, says the government official, is “very aligned with the national strategy for the integration of homeless people, with this concern to, above all, restore dignity and give people an opportunity again, guaranteeing an essential asset, which is housing».
Basically, it is about creating "a virtuous cycle", which begins with accommodation and is reinforced "by the technical teams that provide follow-up from the point of view of reintegration, psychological and social support and support for integration into the labor market" .
"All this is part of this great program that the Algarve has managed to mobilize, which makes it the only region in the country that has managed to create a program articulated with the municipalities, assuming an integrated regional response," he said.
«I think it is exemplary, that it is a symbolic project, because it is starting to show the results of people who have been in shared apartments and who, at this moment, are achieving their autonomy, already with their own accommodation. So this is serving as a ladder for people to get off the street and reintegrate into society», concluded the minister.
On the part of those in the field, there is a guarantee that the work will continue.
“We have a principle: nothing is impossible, you just have to give it the opportunity. And, often this is. We treat the homeless as the people they are and I think this is fundamental», defended Fábio Simão.
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