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Don’t let Madrid leave people in food poverty during the corona crisis.

This global crisis, this pandemic, doesn’t discriminate between borders, ideologies or territories. The Spanish government keeps repeating it but that doesn’t make it true: the consequences of the crisis aren’t equal for every family. Our position in society directly determines what protection is available to us and whether we can access to resources to overcome this challenge.

Today Madrid’s housing movement is reaching out to groups across the world to support our campaign for access to food during the corona crisis in the wake of the shutdown of food banks, soup kitchens and social services provision.

Who needs it? People whose fridges are already empty.
It’s not just the self-employed, those that have been sacked and the unemployed that need help. We can’t ignore thehuge percentage of Madrid population that live on the margins, making ends meet through jobs here and there, looking after children, doing people’s laundry… all without a contract or at best with a dodgy contract that doesn’t properly account for their hours. Interns, people on the waiting list for benefits, people with small family businesses, street salespeople… these people already have an empty fridge.

How should it be done? Healthy free meals or direct financial support.
Children and the elderly need meals delivered to their homes and it’s no surprise that suppliers are finding it hard to meet demand. But why are our children being delivered junk food when for the same price we could buy our own fresh, healthy products just like other families? Rather than dishing out dodgy contracts to fast food companies, the regional government should be given out food vouchers through already existing schemes.

When? Now!
We can’t be made to pay for the corona crisis in the same way we were made to pay for the 2008 crisis -the same way many of us are still paying the cost of the 2008 crisis. We’ve spent the last decade being fooled into a false optimism that had stopped many fo us seeing quite how badly the financial crisis affected our quality of life. Those that have work are still poor, many households have no income whatsoever, the gig economy leaves so many of us precarious…

We all know who’s the first to take the hit. The problem is urgent and simple to solve. Nappies, milk, fruit… They can’t wait -not for three months, not even for three days!