Within the scope of the Cold Contingency Plan (PCCF), the Municipality of Beja (CMBeja) will create a Temporary Reception Center (CAT), designed to welcome people experiencing homelessness, who sleep on the city streets.
The information was transmitted at the Municipal Executive meeting held last Wednesday, it being revealed that “a space will be created”, through the installation of containers (Lidador News file photo of the old Flávio Santos Stadium), so that people experiencing homelessness “can stay overnight during the colder months”, justified the councilor responsible for Social Action.
The space will work between 15 November and the beginning of next February, duly controlled and supported by Municipality services, adding Marisa Saturno that “in recent times the number of homeless people living in Beja has increased”, not having been quantified how many human beings are living on the streets.
The mayor explained that the installation of the containers will be carried out in city hall facilities “in accordance with Covid-19” allowing people to rotate “as they no longer need to use the space”, concluded.
The space is intended only for nightly reception of those in need and will have security and also the presence of a PSP bonus to avoid conflicts..
Welcome Center for “occupants” of the Red Cross Building
Last February, CMBeja set up on the old football field, the Flávio Santos Municipal Stadium, a set of eleven containers, creating a Temporary Reception Center (CAT), which over the course of two months received four dozen national and foreign citizens without a place to sleep, the “squatters” who were in the Refer Building rented by the Portuguese Red Cross (CVP) to Portugal's Infrastructures (IP), and it was boarded up.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
