Requests for food support in the Algarve increase as the end of the summer approaches, but the great “blow” of the crisis should be felt in the coming months, officials from solidarity institutions in the region believe.
With a high rate of employability during the summer, associated with tourism, the population of the Algarve only should start to feel the real effects of the economic crisis in the low seasonit started during the Covid-19 pandemic and is now exacerbated by the energy crisis and rising cost of living due to inflation.
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Speaking to Lusa, the president of the AIDS Problem Support Movement (MAPS), Fábio Simão, described as “suffocating” the situation caused by the rise in the price levelwhich has led some of the people supported by the institution to request “a reinforcement of the basket they receive before the end of the month”.
Little by little we are feeling that some people are asking for support again, but we still do not have the big shock that is masking the summer,” said the official, predicting that “the worst is yet to come” with inflation on the rise and winter approaching.
Despite estimating that there will be an increase in requests for help in the coming months, due to the likely worsening of living conditions, Fábio Simão cannot yet anticipate whether the situation will be more difficult than in previous winters.
The institution supports fifty people with food baskets donated by the Food Bank and other entities, around 160 through a government program to support needy families and approximately 70 with prepared meals, within the framework of the exceptional support created during the pandemic.
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The coordinator of Refood in Faro, an institution that fights against food waste and delivers these goods to disadvantaged families, was also convinced that “The situation is going to get complicated” when summer ends and winter approaches.
I think by mid-September we will again have a lot of requests for help. More than in previous years”, predicted Paula Matias, pointing out as one of the main reasons for this increase the decrease in the standard of living caused by inflation and the end of the aid moratoria created during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the official, about 70% of the families who seek the institution do so, above all, because of the high housing rents they pay in the Algarve and which means that at the end of the month they have little or nothing left for other expenses.
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Families have to pay for a series of services, especially rent, and what remains at the end is food,” he noted, adding that more and more middle-class families ask for help In a universe of “more than 500 people” that the institution helps, which corresponds to some 200 families
According to Paula Matias, in the last weeks of August the demand for food support increased, mainly from families who had suspended these requests, because they had arranged a precarious work during the summer, which has already ended.
For his part, a person in charge of Cáritas Diocesana do Algarve told Lusa that there is still no increase in the demand for support in the region, similar to what is already happening in other regions of the country, due to the good year that the tourism and the fact that many people continue to work.
The landscape of social care here in the Algarve may differ a bit from what is happening in the rest of the country, in the sense that we have not yet noticed a greater influx of people. […] that is already beginning to be noticed in the rest of the country. Here, at Cáritas Diocesana do Algarve, we haven’t realized it yet”, said Ana Sofia Pereira, from the institution’s Social Action area.
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The person in charge justified it. difference with seasonality and with “the fact that the Algarve, in terms of hotels, has been in great demand” and that “makes people, for the most part, busy”.
As they are generating income, they still do not feel the crisis, which is expected and which we know will happen, because this demand will be the same as in the rest of the country, but in time many different. Possibly here we will begin to feel it in the second half of September or the beginning of October, but for now we do not have that demand, ”he estimated.
Ana Sofía Pereira pointed out that the current care situation is due “to the reality of each year in the Algarve“, where, “even in pandemic years this was noticeable” and, “from June to mid-September or early October, things slow down a bit” in terms of social support “because most people get jobs” .
It is a precarious job, because it is a job sometimes without a contract and that does not have continuity when the high season ends, but for now we know, through other diocesan Caritas in the country, that there is already a great demand for new people asking for help. ”, he acknowledged.
Regarding a possible reinforcement of the response capacity, anticipating an increase in demand, Ana Pereira replied that Cáritas Diocesana do Algarve -which supports 534 people, a total of 197 families —, is “always present in situations like these that it has to strengthen its response capacity”.
Source: Observadora
