Doha He arrives from the summer ‘casal’ very hungry and thirsty. He wants cold water. He opens the fridge and closes it finding hardly anything. Repeat the movement systematically for one minute on the clock. He gives up and, without achieving his goal, heads towards the bathroom to shower. The switch turns it off and on, at a minimum, about 20 times. In the end he gives up: the light is cut “due to the high risk of fire in the meters”, according to sources Endesa. He becomes enraged and bangs on the walls while, with a lost look but at the same time brave, he looks for his mother, Sara Badani.
The nine year old girl has been diagnosed with third degree autism and a disability of 73%. He lives with his mother in one of the 27 occupied flats at number 47 of the C / Puig i Cadafalch by Platform for People Affected by the Sabadell Mortgage (PAHC) since March 2020, although the PAHC began to occupy the property in 2015. Some 150 people (28 families)among which there are 30 minors and three dependents.
The building of these families is the one in which Endesa, Together with the Mossos d’Esquadra, they cut the light last Wednesday July 12, due to the aforementioned risk to the safety of families. They struggle to return to their ‘normal’ after six days without light and they claim the social accountants to those who confirm from the Alliance against the Energy Poor (APE), have the right from the historic Generalitat-Endesa agreement to electricity service even if they cannot pay for it if they justify their vulnerability. As the PAHC activists explain, the current situation can be prolonged between two and six more months.
From the Platform they ensure that to access the occupied floors it is essential requirement justify the vulnerability certificate of Social services. He Sabadell Town Hall confirms that it is monitoring the families, although from the department of Social Action They cannot specify how many.
THE NEWSPAPER has spent a day with four of those vulnerable families -with reports verified by this newspaper- to see first-hand how people survive without electricity in a heat wave.
“Do without electricity in full heat wave has immersed us in a reality that drowns us. The situation is untenable. Now We live in fear in case our water is cut off. The shower is the only routine my daughter keeps,” says Badani, a mother from Doha. Frightened, with a small mouth and moist eyes, Badani, 31 years oldborn in Nador (Morocco), opens the doors of his apartment in the building managed by the PAHC with the aim of “responding to the housing emergency of the 28 families in a situation of vulnerability& rdquor ;.
“My daughter is afraid of going to the bathroom without light”
Coexistence in Doha within this situation is not easy. Well, “when the routine of a person with autism is broken, it is as if they destabilize life and pays for it messing up the house, hitting the furnitureat walls and even herself”, explains Badani. “If the emotional management of Doha was already complicated, with this new reality the girl’s feelings operate “as a roller coaster”props up the mother.
And he exemplifies it with a daily action: “My daughter doesn’t understand why she has to go to the bathroom in the dark and are afraid. It alters. How can she not go to the bathroom by herself? & Rdquor ;, points out her mother, who assures that “before asking for help, she does all the needs on herself.” In fact, Badani explains that the City Council is at the situation current. They have been following them for years. However, he says that he met the PAHC because the Social services “They suggested I use this platform.”
“I’ve run out of medicine”
Rafi Llamas, 51 years oldconcentrates his general discomfort in his broken voice. have diabetes and the fact of not being able to have fridge The situation aggravates him: “I keep the insulins in my mother-in-law’s fridge. In my house I can no longer& rdquor ;, says Llamas.
He also lives in the block baptized by the PAHC -and popularly known- as ‘Guillem Agulló‘, although not with everything you need to manage your diabetes. If Llamas has a sugar rush, you will need to wait at least 30 minutes to remedy it.
The day to day of Llamas? “Hot flashes, dizziness, hot flashes and an accumulated fatigue. He also constantly suffers from not being able to charge his mobile: “If I have an emergency, what do I do?”, he asks himself.
Live with your partner Carlos Suarez, of Uruguayan origin, who has not yet obtained Spanish nationality or, by extension, a job. Therefore, whenever he can, he goes out with his cart to look for “treasures” in the garbage in the center of the city. “Everything we have at home is from the containers, except the table,” he details.
Llamas and Suárez live with their two dogs thanks to her pension. Enter a total of 395 euros per month. He Urgències and Emergencies Service (SUE) and the Sabadell City Council already knows them. Since 2013, Llamas routinely goes every 15 days to look for food, but “now there is less quantity, since more people using the service”exclaims the neighbor.
“I want to pay, but it’s food or housing”
“See the police at my house? Nothing scares me anymore. Just a little snakes & rdquor ;. she comments Roman (not his real name), one of the minors living in the block (12 years old), two days after being discharged from a pneumonia. One day, he explains, he woke up with more than two riot vans in the doorway of his house. Since then, her life has taken a turn. 180 degrees.
The doctor has recommended rest and stay at home to recover from the disease. “How do you have to stay at home with the heat that it is and with practically no distractions? Both his father and I spent the day outside & rdquor ;, he wonders Fouzia (44 years old), his mother.
His command of the ‘PlayStation‘ has become a candle holding for brushing teeth. “At first they thought it was a party, especially at night, when we were completely in the dark. The first day they find it funny, but the sixth it’s already desperate& rdquor ;, explains his mother, who lives with her three children – 12, 9 and 7 years– and her husband, who is taking courses to understand Catalan and to work with solar panels in the Llonch de Sabadell steamship.
Fouzia got her nationality on March 8. “Since I have the NIE, my life has changed, although we still have a lot to do,” explains the mother, who works taking care of an elderly person. With hooded eyes and a half-drawn smile, she longs to find a social rent. “My children do not deserve this. They don’t have to go to sleep with a gas-powered light. Something very dangerous & rdquor;the Mint.
In this line it is expressed Andres Uceno: “I want to pay, but finding affordable rent becomes a Odyssey. It is food or housing & rdquor ;. Uceno lives with his wife and denounces that poverty is a structural problem.
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“The few savings we have to allocate to buy a gas cooker, lights -also gas-, portable refrigerators, batteries, among other objects that we will never use when we recover the electricity supply& rdquor;. He, certificate of vulnerability in hand, praises the PAHC task while focusing on the need to live “dignified lives & rdquor ;.
Further Sabadell news in the local edition of THE NEWSPAPER Sabadell