July 2, 2022
Some 160 people who had been sleeping for months inside the Jorge Newbery Airport were evicted in a joint operation of national agencies and the Ministry of Human Development and Habitat of the City of Buenos Aires, according to airport sources, while social organizations warned that in the district “there are more and more people who have nowhere to live and who take refuge wherever they can”. All this comes as winter takes hold in the Southern Hemisphere.
“On June 29, an operation was carried out to move the homeless people who were staying at Jorge Newbery airport. It was a joint decision of the national agencies operating at the airport and the Ministry of Human Development and Habitat of the City of Buenos Aires,” Aeropuertos Argentina stated through a mid day press release.
The operation involved officials and specialized personnel from the Ministry of Human Development of the City of Buenos Aires, and the Airport Security Police (PSA).
According to the text, the people who accepted to be transferred were taken “by teams of the Buenos Aires Presente (BAP) program to the Social Inclusion Centers operating in the City, where they were to receive comprehensive assistance.
However, remaining are several homeless people who decided to stay in the vicinity of the airport remained at the airport entrance outside in the cold.
Sources from the Buenos Aires Ministry of Human Development told Télam that, of the 160 people evicted from inside the airport, 30 agreed to be transferred by the BAP program to the network of Social Inclusion Centers. In this sense, they added that each person will receive a “different accompaniment” according to their particular situation and explained that “many of them have already started the procedure to obtain a housing subsidy”.
The presence of homeless people in the airport began “several months ago, escalating to a number of approximately 160 people staying overnight in the terminal,” the official statement said.
In view of this situation, “we have been working continuously to provide assistance to these people and offer them the alternatives corresponding to their required situation”, it was added.
In the last hours, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) warned through a Twitter thread during the beginning of the operation: “They are evicting people who have been sleeping for months in Aeroparque. In all this time the Ministry of Human Development of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires did not propose to them any alternative other than a parador to spend the night.”
” In spite of the cold, many of the evicted people prefer to stay sleeping outside,” they warned. In this sense, they pointed out that, after the procedure carried out early this morning, “today there are a hundred more people on the street, with uncertain fate, without their belongings and without food”.
At the same time, they warned that in the city of Buenos Aires “there are a growing number of people who have nowhere to live and who take refuge wherever they can”.
Meanwhile, the community organization Amigos en el Camino stated that “of the more than 100 people who were taking refuge in the Aeroparque most were evicted without being allowed to bring with them their belongings or documentation”.
One young man said, “They just took us outside. They left us like dogs, without food, without being able to gather a little water. “I have a disability. They didn’t let me take my things out. I asked for access to my document but they blocked me. It’s embarrassing, it’s sad to see so many people outside. So many grown people”.
Yesterday, social and community organizations carried out a rally in Plaza de Mayo followed by a march towards the National Congress ending on the final day of Third Latin American and Caribbean Meeting of homeless people, which took place in Buenos Aires demanding public policies to provide fundamental solutions to the problem of homelessness.
Source: Cuba en Resumen