Another life with a second family for homeless people with serious health problems

Is a project of shared housing Foundation Rais

Juan Manuel, Yacouba, Elizabeth, Amanda, Alomg and Boubka are flatmates. Each one has been born in a land different. Do not share blood, culture, ages, some not even language, but today they are a family. Go to purchase, they eat together, do household chores, share their stories, sitting in front of the tv, and help each other. Your life, or your history as flatmates, they would not have anything in particular, but on the outside, because all of them are (or were) homeless people with health problems.

They six living in community together with other 34 people in the small attached villas that form the building Carmen Sacristán, built -and led - by the Fundación Rais in the neighbourhood of The Tables. There, where primarily they land after a hospital admission, in addition to recover from their ailments and to follow the medical treatments that they may not receive if they did not have a roof, you get a comprehensive care until they are discharged or, in the case of the seriously ill, chronically ill or terminal phase, up to the end of their days.

The project, a pioneer in the country and funded by the Community of Madrid, has already attended so far this year to 83 people. Its main objective is to create a space more like a home. And as well as feel them.

"This is like a new family, there should be more sites like this", tells to THE WORLD Juan Manuel -born in Venezuela and 30 years living in Spain-who had a job and housing until a brain tumor and the other lung will he put his life upside down. The next month will be one year in this social center.

The story of Elizabeth is similar. "Here I got very sick and you looked after me very well. They gave Me clothes, eat, I healed and I was recovering. Since I have been here has changed me up to the character. At the beginning, I fought with all the world. They call her names and they treated me well. I was told the psychologists that he was afraid", relates to this region, that came into the building seven months ago with two cancers and not able to walk. Where there is "delighted" he has returned to walking.

The honduran Amanda, the oldest, and, at the same time, the youngest of the house, tells us that he came to Spain with dreams and illusions but that, only nine months after landing, he was in the street when I detected a tumor in the pelvis, a priori, inoperable -today has five interventions-. "They told Me to try to slow down the cancer needed to have a home," he says. "My life was a mess, had no where to go, had no family, roles... So I was thrilled when it came out this. I can't walk, but still want to live, to fight. And I am grateful for this new life that has been presented to me. I love my teammates, they are my second family", she says with tears in the eyes of "pure happiness and joy".

As the three of them, most of the people who welcomes this social center are cancer patients, although in this house of hospitality also provides services to people with other ailments, some of them chronic: diabetes, heart disease and respiratory... Is the case Alomg, which takes 10 months at this home because he suffers serious problems with heart. Or Boubka, who has a pacemaker even though he has studied other diseases, and today, after a year and two months in the house, is waiting for the retirement to give him a place in a centre for the elderly.

there are Also some cases in which "the treatment that require this sick is so expensive that the health system is not provided to people who live in the street", pointing from the Foundation Rais. Yacouba is an example of this. Arrived 16 years ago to Spain by boat from the Ivory Coast. With papers and mortgage, in 2009 he lost the passport and got his ruin. After losing his apartment, he lived three years in the calle Segovia, and another short time in a pension in Montera. Until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. "I arrived seven months ago with 53 kilos and now I weigh 72", says proud. "I'm good here, at ease, happy and more confident", he adds.

The majority of people living in this center an average of 9 months, although "there are people who spend years and other weeks. There is a maximum time", indicate from the Community of Madrid. The waiting list is extensive and the Fundación Rais, which leads from 2012 with this project, gives priority to patients who need help the most.

once there, the workers of this common household, in addition to meeting the most basic needs of these people, give them a psychological care, and ensure that you follow your treatment, eat well, accompany them to the medical centers... "we Do preventive work, and also educational. We teach them how to interact and live with others, some even recover his family. And we also try to normalize their situation in the face of society". For that reason, offered to the residents of the neighborhood book club, gourmet, garden, football, or reiki.

In the words of the councilor for Social Policies and Family, Lola Moreno, "it is not therefore a resource of health, but one eminently social that allow these people to leave hospital care, but ensuring the environment and adequate support for proper outpatient follow-up of their disease, while at the same time the coordination with the Social Services System so that at the time of the output of the resource residential the person access to benefits that this system puts at your disposal, in equal conditions as the rest of citizens".

The center, pointing from the regional Government, aims to "fill a gap that did not exist in the management level of accommodation, as the hostels don't give those health care and food." "Many of these people do not have access to their rights, such as to primary care, because the unknown, by lack of documentation or because of prejudice," he added.

The Community of Madrid, which will offer 40 beds for people in situation of convalescence from the year 2015 as part of your Plan of Inclusion of Homeless People, recently renewed the contract with the Fundación Rais by more than two billion euros for 2019 and 2020.

From the Foundation Rais suggest that homeless persons suffer from many more diseases and that have up to 30 years less of life. "There are homeless people with serious diseases, with mental health disability or who are using substances that would complicate the pictures, and that is improved with a dwelling".

The project is carried out in four houses of the building Carmen Sexton. In each one of them, that have individual entry, living 10 people. There are single and double rooms, a kitchen-dining room and a lounge. The center, where she works as a team 24 hours a day, 365 days of the yearor, has an infirmary, meeting rooms and individual attention, from games, work occupational therapy and motor skills and encourages leisure.

According to the criteria of