The third sector presented the report this Friday within the framework of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which is celebrated every October 17th. "A day that unfortunately we must commemorate," said the Minister of Social Rights, Raúl Moreno, who participated in the event. The presentation of the dossier concluded with the reading of a manifesto, which ratified the need to address poverty and to resolve these "invisible barriers." Some speakers lamented that the political representatives who introduced the event were not present for this last part, nor for the roundtable, where the different topics were discussed in a profound and proactive manner. Even so, the Board reaffirmed its commitment to this challenge and extended its hand to collaborate more closely with the public administration.
Half of the people in extreme poverty remain outside of social aid
The Third Sector Entities Board asks to reduce bureaucratic hurdles and prohibitive barriers to benefits
Barcelona"Control over need, suspicion over trust, and administrative procedure over urgency." This is how the president of the Table of Third Sector Social Organizations of Catalonia, Xavier Trabado, has summarized the current system of social care and economic benefits. According to a new study by this group of 3,000 entities, half of the people in extreme poverty would not be able to access the main benefits even if they requested them. This would be due to the "invisible barriers" that people in vulnerable situations face when trying to access aid: bureaucratic hurdles, lack of information, and the saturation of social services.
The dossier Invisible barriers, conditional rights: who is left out of social care and economic benefits in Catalonia? warns that 64% of people who would be entitled to the minimum vital income do not access it, and the same happens with 30.73% of those who would meet the requirements for the guaranteed citizenship income, the main benefits against poverty, according to data from the Department of Social Rights.
"The system expects the most needy to be the most entrepreneurial," complains Alba González, a doctor who recently arrived from Cuba and was invited to the roundtable discussion moderated by the deputy director of ARA, Ignasi Aragay, at the Equitat Foundation of the Social Hub. González, who is currently receiving support from Caritas Catalonia, insists on the difficulty of gathering certain documentation for administrative procedures. She also claims that the difficulties faced are not limited to money, but extend to other spheres, such as health or family responsibility.
Sociologists Dolores Medina and Carlos Hernaiz, authors of the report, maintain that there are a series of obstacles that turn formally recognized social rights into a dead letter, as they prove prohibitive for a large portion of the population. Some barriers include the pile of fragmented, incompatible, and incomprehensible benefits—even for professionals—; the bureaucratization of criteria, conditions, and procedures; the use of overly technical language, and the insufficiency of public resources, among others.
Without guarantees
The main people affected by poverty, according to the report, are children, single-parent families, and immigrants. Bintou Jawara has been waiting for fourteen months for the benefit as a former ward and emphasizes the issue of housing, a common headache for the group (often immigrant) of young people without a support network or economic stability, who are forced to live in apartments without a rental contract and to work in precarious conditions. This leads to a vicious "cycle" that never stops turning, with obstacles to obtaining the municipal registration, which is necessary for the rest of the procedures.
![A moment from the roundtable on barriers to social and economic benefits.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 2048 1365"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
And to all this must be added the hate speech of the far right, with fallacies such as "paguetes" (handouts), added Trabado: "A structural change is needed; wealth is not distributed automatically and rights are not guaranteed just because they are recognized". In fact, having a job is not a guarantee of escaping poverty either. Almost four out of every ten workers receive income below the minimum wage. In total, more than 2 million people in Catalonia, 24.8%. And the percentage rises to 36.6% in the case of children and adolescents.
The figures in this report have challenged Plàcit Fusté, a social educator from the social services of Granollers invited to the round table, who after almost twenty years dedicated to the sector has defined the situation of poverty as a "bottomless pit". He lamented that there are three-month waiting lists in the capital of the Vallès Oriental, where they are "overwhelmed". Kautar Loukaini, director of the strategic area of the Eveho Foundation, remained more optimistic and claimed the need to focus on the prevention of vulnerability and not just on reacting to it. Reversing the scenario "is impossible until you do it", he launched as a hopeful message.
The Third Sector Entities Table puts on the table a series of proposals such as strengthening local guidance and support devices, guaranteeing clearer information, harmonizing access criteria, or simplifying the current benefits system. It also highlights the need to achieve a more proactive administration in order to reduce the non take-up, that is, the group of people in a situation of poverty who could access aid but do not access it or do not obtain it due to these apparently invisible barriers. At the same time, the entities point to the digital divide and consider the intention to streamline processes digitally to be counterproductive, as it leaves out many people without access to these tools.
