During the second half of the 20th century, thousands of children and young people studied in what is known as the old Home School, located in Las Barreras, within the Protected Landscape of Las Lagunetas, in El Rosario. A nostalgic perspective of the property (it ceased to have educational use in 1998) that cannot stand the gaze of the passage of time. Closed since 2011, the residents of the area are fed up with the insecurity generated by the place being in disuse. They have denounced fire attempts, large bottles and gatherings to capture alleged psychophonies in the place.
Tired of this situation, the municipal government chaired by Escolástico Gil proposes to the Plenary urge the Government of the Canary Islandsowner of the property, to include it in the Social and Health Infrastructure Plan of Canary Islands to rehabilitate it as a center for the elderly and alleviate the deficit of this type of public squares.
If it is concluded that it is impossible to adapt the building for its commissioning, the motion calls for its demolition“since its progressive deterioration, for more than ten years now, entails a manifest insecurity, both for the residents of the area and for those who access its interior with some regularity.”
The old Escuela Hogar has almost 5,000 square meters of constructed area and, after its closure as an educational center (1998)was used as the center for minors with Nivaria judicial measures (until 2004) and for the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors, in the 2006 canoe crisis, under the jurisdiction of the Canarian Government.
In 2011, with the gradual decrease in the arrival of immigrants, the site was closed and abandoned since then, lacking any maintenance and being used, only sporadically, as a space for tactical training by the Military Emergency Unit (UME). ), Brifor and Security and Emergency Bodies.
Neighborhood complaints
IR-Verdes explains in its motion that during this time of abandonment and gradual deterioration of the facilities, there are multiple complaints from neighbors -which have the report of the Local Police- on different episodes and incidents: outbreaks of fire (with the consequent danger of its spread to the nearby Protected Landscape of Las Lagunetas), entry of vehicles and unauthorized people, large bottles, breakage of crystals, detonations, use as a dump and for dumping remains of works and even practices associated with rites of Santeria and of a parapsychological nature, “such as the case of night recordings inside the enclosure to capture supposed psychophonies.” The City Council of El Rosario has transferred all of this to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
The local government, at the same time, alludes to the “interest and potential of this infrastructure”, as was verified with the visit, in October 2020, of the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, “to weigh its opening before the intensification of the migratory flow to the Canary Islands», at that time.
The IR-Verdes proposal recalls that the Canary Islands Social and Health Infrastructure Plan contemplates creating social and health care centers and improving existing resources, with the expansion and increase of 5,466 places planned both in residential resources and in day centers for the elderly and people with disability.
For this reason, the municipal government concludes that “the qualification of the old Escuela Hogar as a center for the elderly would entail not only the general improvement of a facility, the maintenance of which the Government of the Canary Islands has been disregarding since 2011, but also alleviating the deficit of socio-sanitary places in the Canary Islands”.
