A new demographic gets flattened

The workers at Cáritas, the Catholic charity, have known it for a long time: the crisis is not just hitting more people, but also individuals who until recently would never have been considered at risk to begin with.

"Between 2005 and 2007 we assisted 182,000 people in Madrid. Between 2008 and 2010 we helped 322,650, nearly twice as many," says Javier Hernando, coordinator general of Cáritas Madrid. And the difference is not just quantitative. "Besides the increase, the difference is that there has been a rise in Spanish families who are going from a stable economic situation to one of vulnerability and social exclusion."

The Madrid department of social affairs has reached a similar conclusion: "The average aid recipient has changed. Many are unemployed Spaniards, people who could never imagine themselves in this situation."

Other support groups confirm the trend. The volunteers at Sant Egidio, another Catholic charity, have doubled the volume of food handouts. A charitable organization for the homeless called Solidarios para el Desarrollo warns that even though there has not been an increase in the number of people living on the streets, they (around 2,000) now have to compete for food and clothes with a new group of aid recipients from the middle class.

Daily life has changed a lot for Álvaro in recent times. A lean 52-year-old with a bony face and a beard, Álvaro these days spends most of his time alone, listening to the radio on his headphones. Until a couple of years ago, he owned several auto body-repair shops and a few food and drink bars as well. But the speed at which his personal finances (and his life) have changed is nothing short of brutal. After making over 10,000 euros a month, he now earns under 600: 370 euros from a state check for people without a minimal income (known as Renta Mínima de Inserción, or RMI) plus 200 euros for renting out a garage space that he managed to hold on to after losing everything else. In the Madrid region, the number of RMI recipients has grown over 80 percent this year from the last, to reach 15,519.

Álvaro stubbornly tried to keep his businesses afloat during the crisis, and this made a large dent in his savings. Whatever was left he spent over the last year. He no longer pays the 2,400-euro alimony he owes his ex-wife to support their three children. He had to move out of his rental apartment (750 euros a month) and slept for three months in a van from one of his former auto repair shops. For a week now, he's been renting a room for 250 euros a month in an apartment he shares with an Ecuadorean couple with a baby and two young people from Bangladesh who work at night and sleep by day. His small room has a closet that doubles as a pantry, and contains eggs, beans, sugar and a shower sponge. He also keeps an old guidebook to cigars, a memento of times past.

His friends and relatives are unaware of his current situation. That is why he would rather not give out his surname, so nobody will recognize him, especially his children, who are still young and whom he sees every Sunday. "They don't know and I don't want them to know. People are very mean," he says.

"Mine is a problem of purchasing power," he explains pragmatically, with no touch of drama in his voice. "Even if my destiny is to live in bad conditions from now on, nobody can take away the good years I've had. It's hard, but human beings can get used to everything," he says.

Álvaro has adapted his routine to the new times. He eats at soup kitchens and wears clothes he gets at charities. He does not have the fare for public transportation, so he spends hours walking across Madrid. Although he lives in the area of Plaza del Carmen, he has breakfast at a soup kitchen run by nuns near Alonso Martínez (3.2 kilometers and a 41-minute walk away, according to Google Maps). From there he walks to the library at the Buenavista cultural center (2.4 kilometers and a 31-minute walk away), where he has 45 minutes to surf the internet for free and look up job offers "to work in any capacity."

He then has lunch at the San Francisco soup kitchen in Guzmán el Bueno (4.8 kilometers and an hour away on foot), and from there to the public library in Iglesia (2.2 kilometers and 28 minutes away), where he has another hour of free internet access. Dinner is at Santa Pontificia, in Malasaña (1.7 kilometers and 20 minutes away), and after that he likes to hang out at the Fnac store in Callao (0.5 kilometers and seven minutes away), reading a book until closing time (he likes Sidney Sheldon, Almudena de Arteaga and Arturo Pérez Reverte). It takes him an hour (4.7 kilometers) to get home.

Álvaro's is not an isolated case. "When we ask people why they're here, three out of four mention unemployment as the main motive. Nearly 60 percent have problems buying food, 41 percent paying rent, and 40 percent paying for utilities like water, gas or electricity," says a Cáritas spokesperson. The Catholic charity has approved an emergency plan that will remain in place until early 2012 and supply a little extra income for 2,000 families in need.

Laura Sacristán, a 56-year-old volunteer at Cáritas who has been working for 15 years at the parish of Our Lady of Piety, in Vallecas, has borne witness to the changes: "It used to be that we almost never got any Spaniards, and now there are more and more," she says. "We hadn't given food out for ages, but two years ago we brought this service back because people need it. We don't have enough for everyone, so we send them to a soup kitchen run by Siervas de Jesús. Spaniards feel embarrassed to go. And parents with children, who are not allowed inside, get the food in tupperware boxes."

"I need kids' clothes in sizes four years and six years," begs María. An unemployed mother of two, she represents one of the most vulnerable groups in the crisis: single-parent homes. Requests for children's clothes and Christmas toys are the main concern at the website www.acabaconlacrisis.es, where there are nearly 700 messages from people requesting children's things and people willing to give them away.

Gabriel had a big problem. A 35-year-old computer expert, his company recently informed him that all activity was being suspended until February, as there were no clients. He could not collect unemployment. He could no longer pay the rent on his room. He couldn't even "buy macaroni." So he turned to charity. Then, tired of the waits, he moved back in with his parents in the northern region of La Rioja: "I couldn't come up with a new system for eating every day."

Something similar happened to Luis, who used up all his savings while he looked for work. In the end, he could no longer pay the rent, so he borrowed some money for a train ticket back home to his family in Seville.

The Madrid Housing Institute (Ivima), which owns 23,000 housing units that are home to around 100,000 people, was forced to reduce the rent for 5,200 families who simply could not pay. The amounts are under 50 euros a month. "We have noticed an increase in especially needy cases; we are seeing lots of families who until recently enjoyed favorable living conditions and are now forced to turn to us," says Juan Van-Halen, the manager of Ivima. Defaults among his tenants have risen from between five and seven percent to 10 percent in the last two years. Every year, Ivima conducts between 150 and 200 evictions (a third for payment defaults, the rest to get rid of squatters).

On November 18, several networks broadcast the dramatic eviction of a large family from Manoteras: Azucena Paredes, 29, her partner, their three children ages one through four, her mother, 52, and her grandmother, 87. That same day, while the police climbed the stairs to throw them out of an apartment owned by the Municipal Housing Corporation (to which the family owed years of back rent), a group of neighbors kicked down another door in a nearby apartment that they say has been sitting empty for years. Since then, the Paredes have been living in this new dwelling, which has one room fewer than their old home. Azucena and her children now share a room with her mother (her partner, unemployed like herself, has moved back in with his parents). The second room is for the grandmother.

In these last two weeks, the family has barely gotten used to the change. Suitcases and clothes pile up in the living room. They have water and electricity, and use electric heaters to keep warm. Azucena, who makes 390 euros from welfare ("it expires next month and I'll have to apply for RMI," she says) does not get any other help. Her mother, who is temporarily on leave, makes around 500 euros a month. Her grandmother has a 600-euro pension with which she helps another grandson of hers. Azucena is embarrassed to go to Cáritas and she is afraid of the social services: "A little before the eviction I went round to ask some questions, but they told me that the children could end up in a foster home and my grandmother in a residence, so I ran out of there," she says. Schooling for her three children costs 320 euros a month.

The stress of the last few weeks has taken its toll on the eldest daughter, who tried to hit the journalists. "We tried to prevent them from seeing the eviction, but when the eldest came home from school, she found all her little things on the street and she got scared," says Azucena. "We told her the old house broke and that's why we're in the new one." For now, the "new house" is the family's only hope. "Who can pay 800 euros in rent? We certainly can't," says Azucena.

Her grandmother, who is following the conversation, is furious. "Never in my life did I think I'd be in this situation; we look like circus people, jumping around like this. I'm not used to it. What are my friends going to say?"