Vice-President of the Funchal City Council (CMF), Bruno Pereira has announced that the opening of another residence for homeless people in Funchal will be announced later this week.
This, he said, will be the second facility allocated for this purpose under the “Solidarity Housing” project, promoted by the Municipality of Funchal, and this time, the new residence will open its doors in a different area.
“At the beginning of this mandate, we opened a house on Avenida de Luís de Camões for this purpose and very soon we will have a second house in the Barreiros area.”
However, Bruno Pereira did not fail to note that the scourge of homeless people in Funchal has shown signs of stabilisation, with currently about 130 citizens in this situation identified by the municipality.
In this regard, he further highlighted the municipal strategy outlined to deal with this reality, which involves “several partners” and “intervention vectors,” of which transitional housing is an example, as well as the action of street teams, in order to promote the rehabilitation of these individuals.
“Our goal is to have a more inclusive society in Funchal, knowing that the issue of the homeless population is often linked to issues of polyconsumption, and this is the biggest challenge we have to face”, he predicted.
More than 200 thousand euros rehabilitated the building ceded to AMI
Speaking of CMF’s partners in the social sphere, Bruno Pereira highlighted the importance of the rehabilitation works of the building ceded to AMI/Centro Porta Amiga, under a Lending Contract signed in 1996, which already presented “some pathologies.”
“This intervention consisted of the recovery of the building’s general paint, window frames, floors, roof, and the sealing of the entire floor,” explained the Vice-President, noting, however, that this contract also sought to respect and maintain the identity of this property, which is located in the historic area of São Pedro.
It should be noted that, in all, this requalification represented an investment of about 217 thousand euros by the Funchal municipality.
“But more than the work that the Chamber has carried out, what is important is to highlight the social work that is developed by AMI and how important their work is to the population of Funchal, especially those living on the poverty line and need and seek support in different areas,” he concluded.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
