The Red Cross and the Arona City Council have renewed the agreement that will allow an essential plan to be maintained this year aimed at those who are experiencing the worst and do not even have a roof to shelter. It is about the Mobile Social Emergency Unit project, which every day, between Monday and Friday, distributes breakfasts, lunches and dinners to homeless people in the municipality, and which has gone from 40 to 100 in little more than a year, the majority in Los Cristianos, Playa de Las Américas, El Fraile and Las Galletas. The Aronero consistory, through the Department of Social Services directed by Elena Cabello, has approved an endowment of 183,837 euros to maintain the service.
The Mobile Social Emergency Unit operates in different areas, starting with guaranteeing the basic needs of homeless people (food, shelter and hygiene products), but also offers a comprehensive service for cases through the Personalized Intervention Plan. As explained to this newspaper by José Luis Camisón, coordinator of the Red Cross in the Abona region, the plan consists of informing and guiding from the social, labor and legal point of view, especially in matters of registration and regularization of the administrative situation of the users.
In addition, the program, which has the support of health personnel and the team of volunteers, provides social assistance, including reception interviews, and carries out different procedures and procedures, including the possibility of referrals to other resources and projects. The mayor of Arona, José Julián Mena, stressed the “need to deploy a social shield that supports those who are experiencing the worst” and described the Mobile Social Emergency Unit as “fundamental”.
The pandemic has multiplied in recent months the number of Red Cross aid to residents of Spanish nationality in the south of Tenerife and the number of families without economic resources with minors in their care without resources has also increased.
