The Council of Tenerifethrough the program Barrios por el Empleo: Stronger Together, offers a Accompaniment service and personalized support for homeless people or who are at risk of losing their home to facilitate access and maintenance of a job. So far this year, nearly 80 people have been assisted through this specialized service, which operates throughout the island. It offers participants personalized actions adapted to their circumstances to improve both their proactive job search and their skills and professional skills.
The service, managed by Diocesan Caritas of Tenerife under the coordination of the Foundation for Training, Employment and Business Development (Fifede), dependent on the Cabildo, includes a diagnosis and initial assessment by a specialist to determine priorities and develop an insertion itinerary, based on their personal skills and techniques.
The Minister of Employment, Socioeconomic Development and Social Action, Carmen Luz Baso, explains that “the objective is to provide a service that is as tailored as possible to the needs of homeless people and help them reintegrate into society.”
In this context, Baso explains that “Neighborhoods for Employment not only focuses on improving their employability but, once they get a job, they are followed up to make sure they can handle the situations that they face in their new work situation».
According to Chaxiraxi González Hernández, an employment technician for this service, “the group is very heterogeneous and therefore the work plan must be individualized and adapted to the circumstances and needs of each person.”
There are participants who live in accommodation centers and have their basic needs covered and another higher percentage of people who have had a normalized social life and who are now in danger of losing their homes and have not had the skills to know how to manage the situation.
“All of them experience a very vulnerable emotional and psychological situation» points out González. The technician adds: «The fact of not having a home affects their personal and life development and triggers other situations, such as the loss of a support network or low self-esteem, which have to be addressed in parallel to guarantee social well-being of the person”.
Participation in this service includes à la carte training, adapted to the particular needs of each person. Sometimes, the aim is to reinforce or recycle already acquired knowledge and in other cases redirect the professional profile to new sectors or work on the acquisition of skills for employment.
At the same time, a significant number of the participants receive training in digital skills so that they can learn to use other channels in the active job search and get a job independently.
In first person
Reinaldo, one of the participants in this service, points out that the fact of not having a home has made it quite difficult for him to search for a job, in addition to causing other consequences from a social and emotional point of view.
He recounts his experience in the first person: «I lost everything, but now, thanks to the help that they have given me through Barrios por el Empleo, I have managed to train in the socio-health area and reorient my search towards a market niche where I have managed to A job”.
Care for homeless people is one of the services aimed at vulnerable groups offered by Barrios por el Empleo: Stronger Together. A program in which, under the coordination of Fifede, entities and groups such as Don Bosco Salesianos Social, Red Cross, the General Foundation of the University of La Laguna, and Sinpromi also participate, with a priority objective: to improve employability.
In the first six months of this year, this specialized service has welcomed 76 participating people, of which more than half, around 53%, have received training and 26% have found a job. 40% of users are over 45 years of age and a significant number have a low level of education or do not have approved studies, so they decide to prepare training of this type to improve their chances of finding a job.
The latest Caritas report, released at the beginning of July, records 2,738 homeless people in Tenerife, almost a thousand more than in 2020. Almost four out of ten of them live directly outdoors.
