Algarve Situation Report, Wednesday 10^th March 2021
MAR Shopping Algarve raises money for homeless social reintegration projects.
During the month of March, MAR Shopping Algarve launches a donation and fundraising campaign for two homeless social reintegration projects that are being implemented in the Algarve by Associação GATO – Support Group for Drug Addicts.
Under the motto “the smallest gesture makes the biggest difference”, the campaign to collect household appliances and equipment aims to help equip the “Shared Apartments” and the “Projecto – Casa Ajuda”, integrated in the national initiative Housing First, two social responses that are being activated in Loulé and that, in total, will support a total of 15 homeless people.
Donations of equipment and materials, new or second-hand, can be made at the MAR Shopping Algarve Information Desk until March 31st. The two types of housing projects will start operating in mid-March and are already furnished, making it necessary to complement the installations with appliances such as irons, televisions, toasters, coffee machines or magic wands, as well as other elements essential to life daily life, such as towels, pillows, blankets, comforters and sheets, lamps, kitchen linen or toilet utensils, describes a note issued today by MAR Shopping.
Through the GATO Association, two temporary “shared apartments” will be implemented, with a capacity for ten people, and five individual dwellings in the “Housing First” typology, a pioneer in the Algarve and a recent innovation in responding to this social problem. These housing models aim to reintegrate and integrate homeless people into society, promoting independent living and monitoring by a technical team, which focuses on areas such as health, education, work, hygiene and domestic management.
Associação GATO is also collaborating with the Municipality of Loulé in the initiatives of “Shared Apartments” and the Projeto – Casa Ajuda “Housing First, which in total will help 15 people.

More than 30 thousand people may be receiving food support in the Algarve
The deputy of the Left Wing Parliamentary Group, João Vasconcelos, and other members of the Left Algarve Block, met with the board of Banco Alimentar do Algarve in order to understand, the difficulties that the institution faces and the impact of the crisis on families in the region.
According to the Bloc, the Food Bank reported that last year, only between April and December, due to the crisis that the pandemic brought to the region, requests for food aid increased significantly, 74%, from 16,200 people supported through 104 institutions, to 26,300 people, through 119 institutions, making the Food Bank go from 2 million to 3.3 million units of food products distributed.
In the same information, the fact that “such a big deal has never been reached” by the Food Bank in the Algarve is underlined as in the year 2020. Not even at the peak of the previous crisis where the maximum support reached 23,000 people. BE clarifies that the Food Bank, “although the number of donations has increased, and requests for support, are experiencing difficulties in responding to the requested support”.
In view of the current crisis, resulting from the pandemic, at the moment people supported at food level in the Algarve should already exceed 30,000. For the Bloco de Esquerda, the Algarve “is experiencing an authentic social catastrophe and the government is primarily responsible, as it is not giving due and necessary responses to people, families and companies, and has not yet presented any plan to combat crisis in the region, despite having been announced several months ago “, considering it to be” an unacceptable and unsustainable situation “.