Viewpoint

What about the homeless?

Andrew EdePalma19/03/2020 12:56

Police in Palma finally arrested a man who had been told on two previous occasions that he was breaking the order to stay at home without good reason. This person had apparently been drinking. This was as much as the report said, so we weren’t to know his circumstances. But might it just be that he is homeless?

Around this time last year, figures from the Council of Majorca’s Social Affairs Institute and the Red Cross indicated that there were around 200 homeless people in Palma (officially, the number outside Palma is minimal). The vast majority of these people, it was reported, refused to spend nights in social centres and refuges. They were on the streets, some of them having created shanties. A popular location was the Parc de Ses Estacions.

Those who did spend nights in centres were back on the streets during the day. We now have a situation whereby they shouldn’t be on the streets, either during the day or at night. Or does being homeless represent one of the emergency measures’ exemptions - some “comparable” reason to justify not having confined oneself to one’s home. If they don’t have a home, how can they be confined?

What is happening to help the homeless during this crisis? They are extraordinarily vulnerable at the best of times, but these times are the worst. Are they just being left to their own devices, placing themselves and everyone else at risk?