The mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, accompanied by the councilor for Social Action, Rosario González; the councilor for Municipal Housing, Juan José Martínez, and the councilor of the Southwest district, Javier Rivero, today visited the status of execution of the works of the new Social Work Unit (UTS) of the municipality, located in the Añaza neighborhood, which It is facing the final phase of its development to attend and bring basic benefits to more than 5,000 families in this district of the capital.
At the end of the visit, the mayor highlighted the effort that is being made to complete the work of an installation “which is located in one of the centers where there is a greater concentration of resources and social entities”, and announced that “this is not going to be the only action in this sense that we are going to carry out, since we are trying to provide coverage to decent places where we can adequately attend to families who need it ”.
“In this type of facilities our priority is not only attention, but privacy, since in this way we guarantee dignified and professional social services, in a situation as complicated as the one we are experiencing today,” added Bermúdez.
For her part, the councilor for Social Action, Rosario González, pointed out the importance of this type of installation “since with this new premises we are going to have all the social services centralized in one year, in which we have already spent three million euros in food cards for the most vulnerable families in the municipality ”.
Councilor Juan José Martínez, of Municipal Housing, which is the area in charge of executing the works, stressed that “the total sum of the connections to the new headquarters has amounted to 181,235.40 euros and is the construction company Phoenix Group Seven SL who is in charge of executing the improvements “and adds that” they are established in a premises that has a constructed area of about 384 m2, where specialized professional teams from different areas of intervention such as social work, psychology, social education, sociology, pedagogy, administrative assistants, etc. will share space ”.
The reform of the UTS has focused on the demolition of the existing bathrooms and falsehoods in order to reorganize it by areas depending on the needs: reception, registration, citizen service offices and private work area, as well as a meeting room , file, toilets and facilities room. At the same time, the sanitation, plumbing, low voltage, air conditioning, fire protection and telecommunications facilities have been renewed.
The Añaza Social Services Center intervenes in the neighborhoods of Añaza, Acorán, Santa María del Mar, Alisios and Cuevas Blancas and in it, the UTS carry out the social intervention of orientation, advice and information, where all the Economic Benefits of Social Assistance (PEAS) of the Catalog of Benefits, the Home Help Service, Canary Islands Insertion Benefit or referrals to other social resources. For this reason, this new headquarters provides for the annual care of more than 5,000 family units, a figure that means the care and support of up to more than 10,000 Santacruceros and Santacruceras.
There are seven Social Services Centers located in the five districts of the city, which are the main meeting point, information and advice between the residents of Santa Cruz de Tenerife who are in a situation of social vulnerability.
The benefits offered to the most vulnerable sector of the citizenry are intended to alleviate the needs of daily life and to help families in situations of social vulnerability to maintain a standard of living that is as dignified and normalized as possible. Hence, the aid is focused on facilitating access to housing, bonds, intermediation and rentals, community, basic supplies (water, electricity …), food through food cards, referrals to food distribution entities, and other type of complementary aids such as transport, electrical appliances, basic furniture, and so on.
The development of the renewed Social Work Unit has been possible thanks to the coordination between Municipal Housing, IMAS and the Southwest District Council.
