Public administrations owe money to 39% of social organizations in Catalonia; that is, four out of ten are experiencing payment delays for services or activities they provide. This situation is causing cash flow problems. This is one of the findings of the report. The Yearbook of Employment in the Third Social Sector of Catalonia 2025 The report, prepared by the Confederation, the employers' association for these non-profit organizations, was presented this Wednesday in Barcelona.

From having a completely free stroller to passing by local citizens to receive healthcare or social benefits. They are the Rumors that fuel hate speech against migrants, which without any basis are spread throughout a society that has seen how, despite macroeconomic improvements, there is much social precariousness. Dean of the Official College of Social Work of Catalonia, Laura Morro, has warned that professionals from basic municipal social services try to deny favorable treatment toward residents of foreign origin while simultaneously resolving the problems raised by users.

Laura Morro took the relief in Conxita Peña As dean of the Catalan College of Social Work, a position she combines with her work as head of social work at the Consorci Mar Parc de Salut. She states that she has proposed that society and politicians recognize the value of these professionals.

In the wake of the pandemic, the Generalitat (Catalan government) has increased investment in social policies to address the social crisis resulting from restrictive measures, but it has done so 10 percentage points below the Spanish average. In fact, Catalonia remains at the bottom of the list of regions in terms of the increase in social spending between 2019 and 2024, at 14.9%, slightly below the governments of Madrid and Murcia (15 and 16.4%). These are figures from the latest report by the State Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, published this Monday, which denounces that the overall budgetary growth in this post-COVID five-year period has not been reflected in the areas of health, education, and social services. The recovery in social budgets in Catalonia represents an increase of €383 per capita, only slightly exceeding the Madrid budget of the Popular Party (PP) leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso by a mere euro, while the Spanish average stands at around €660.

Between residential and home care, the overwhelming majority of Catalans (93%) would prefer to receive care at home, according to the latest Òmnibus survey. More chronic, neurodegenerative, oncological, and mobility-related illnesses associated with aging, greater loneliness, and greater economic hardship—coupled with demographic predictions that indicate that in less than a decade, one in four inhabitants of the country will be over 65—reveal the need for healthcare and social resources.

If the situation doesn't change, Nadira's family [a fictitious name, like the rest of the witnesses] will soon have spent a year in the Sant Màrius private shelter, referred by social services. Nadira will find the strength to leave him, to make him her ex. in tourist establishments, some three thousand vulnerable people Like them, 41% are single-parent families, with 92% of them being women as the adult representatives.

Mothers with dependent children who must stop working. Daughters or wives who care for parents or partners at home"Families, primarily women, are forced to sacrifice themselves, to make great sacrifices of their lives," summarizes Gustavo García, coordinator of the 2024 DESC Index, which the State Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services uses annually to compile official figures on the state of public social services. The phrase serves to illustrate the extent to which the new home care models advocated by all governments (the ministry is implementing a deinstitutionalization strategy) fail when they clash with the reality of households that must do their part to care for dependent family members with the limited public aid they receive.

The 1970s were a time of many changes in Catalan society. In this context of political and social liberation, one of the quietest revolutions was that of those families who had a child with a mental disability. Subnormal, retarded, handicapped, disabled, incapacitated, and handicapped. These were times when there were no euphemisms to describe a family burden, not only physical but also emotional. These were times when all those with a mental disability were hidden in their homes, away from the prying eyes and prejudices of a still very immature society.

It's almost three years since Marimar's family (a false name, like the rest of the witnesses in the report) has been living from one social services pension to another. They've lived with their three minor children and her husband since they were evicted from the room they had sublet from a married couple who were friends. Like them, Barcelona City Council's social services accommodate some 3,000 vulnerable people in tourist establishments. of which 1,300 are creatures. In principle, a maximum stay of six months is established, but the reality of the users and the housing market in the city makes it impossible to meet these deadlines.

The economic situation is beginning to improve after the worst of the pandemic and lockdowns, but the improvement has not yet reached the most vulnerable sectors of the population. This is clear from the annual balance made by Barcelona's social services, which shows that in 2021 97,531 different people received assistance, 10.36% more than the previous year and 22.56% more than in 2019 (79,575). This reveals a particularly significant fact: 24% of the people who asked for help last year did so for the first time or else had not requested assistance for over a year. The figure, however, is slightly lower than the 32% detected in 2020 and, therefore, shows a slight stabilisation.

It was an innocent question: "How are you?" But enough to tip her over. "I burst into tears and I couldn't stop. I thought I was fine, but I had an anxiety attack. They sent me home and I spent two months with psychological help," explains Marta –fictitious name– an A&E nurse at Bellvitge Hospital. The increased workload, fatigue and uncertainty impact on health workers' mental health after almost two years of the pandemic. Marta works in the emergency surgical block, the only one of the five blocks that attended everything but covid during the pandemic, "and we have found ourselves with a greater workload because operating rooms, outpatient clinics and diagnostic tests have stopped, pathologies have taken longer to diagnose and tumors longer to be operated on, and this means it is more likely for there to be complications," she explains. She assures that they are not back to 100% activity. "At each wave, when beds were needed for covid, we have had to stop our activity. And now, with the sixth wave, patients cannot go up to the ward because they are occupied with covid patients and they accumulate in A&E, it is a collapse". After two months on sick leave she has already returned to her job.

The Catalan Minister of Social Rights, Violant Cervera, has promised this Friday to gain "a minimum of 5,000 social housing units" in the next four years to try to alleviate the structural deficit of affordable housing in Catalonia. In her first appearance in committee to present what will be the programmatic axes of his department, which incorporates the housing portfolio, she stressed that next year the budget for housing policies will increase from the current €200m to €1bn.

Graffiti with writings such as "Either with us or against us", and broken glass in five Social Service centres of Barcelona, have finally exhausted the patience of the council's social service workers, especially because they accuse Ada Colau's government of not having shown them political support when some movements in defence of the right to housing put them at the centre of the protests because of their presence in the evictions. Today they have met in assembly, with representation from all the unions, and have agreed that on 20 April, coinciding with the celebration of the municipal commission of social rights, they will concentrate in the Plaça de Sant Miquel to make their complaints heard.

A group of Torredembarra (Tarragonès) residents attacked a youth centre for unaccompanied foreign minors in the town on Thursday, injuring two of the detainees, one of them gravely. The events took place after a neighbourhood demonstration demanding more security after several crimes were committed by some young adults living in a squat in the area. Once the rally was over, dozens of protesters went on to search for some of the squatters and ended up assaulting a youth living in the centre, who was injured and is now in the Santa Tecla Hospital in Tarragona with a broken nose. They also went to the centre for minors, owned by the Generalitat, and vandalised it before entering and scaring the residents.

His name is Fouzi, but in the neighbourhood he is affectionately known as Cucu, and he is convinced that today, Aurelio Vázquez, a security guard at the Gimnàs Social Sant Pau in the Raval, saved his life. He was sleeping in his sleeping bag, in the street, in a protected space that he sometimes uses if it rains or is windy, when a group of three young men, who looked like neo-Nazis, surrounded him and poured petrol over him with gasoline. It was eight o'clock in the morning and the attack did not go any further because Aurelio prevented it. Dressed in a black uniform and with handcuffs in his pocket, he caught the attention of the three attackers when he saw them throw a liquid on the homeless man, whom he knows because he is a user of the gym: two of them ran off along Ronda Sant Pau towards Sant Antoni market and the third one confronted the security worker with insults and, finally, also ran away. The security guard checked that the liquid was gasoline.