Down and Out in the Algarve

Lagos: early afternoon, any day of the week. The social security office is set in a little garden attached to a state-run kindergarten. Occasionally, crocodiles of singing children snake through the huddles of people waiting for their numbers to come up. It’s a welcome break in the grey of so many people’s reality.

2.30pm. Mário Maio, 48, has been waiting since 10am to be seen. His number, 71, is still 40 numbers away from buzzing him forwards. “It’s always like this,” he sighs. We want to ask him what problem brought him to be waiting four hours in the stuffy office filled with others, but a security guard tells us: “it’s not permitted” to speak to people inside the building. We can only talk to those outside…

Outside the mood is a little more animated. It’s a way of escaping the leaden pressure of sitting still and waiting for one’s number to come up. But the problems stay the same.

Gary Wilmer, 50, is a single parent who lived and worked in Oporto for 20 years as a party animator. “I used to have a lovely house,” he told us. “But four years ago work started to dry up. We decided to come down to the Algarve last April. I thought I’d make enough money for my son and I to at least get back to England – but it didn’t happen.” By September, Gary and his 14-year-old half Portuguese son were living in their car. “There were eight weeks when I honestly didn’t even have a euro in my pocket. I smoked fag ends that I found in the street, and begged.

“I’ve never claimed benefit before, but I honestly didn’t know what to do.”

The father and son ended up “being helped fantastically” by social services. “They organised us enough money to rent a place; we got food from the “Banco Alimentar” for a couple of months, and I’m now receiving the “rendimento minimo” (minimum subsistence wage). They’ve been great to us here. It takes hours to be seen, but the staff are doing everything they can to help people.”

Why was Gary here this time? “I’m trying to get an allotment from the Câmara to grow vegetables, but they need a paper from social security to prove my situation before I can get one.”

Working flat out from the moment the doors open, “senhas” (the numbers people pull to wait their turn) are invariably removed midway during most mornings. “They were taken down at 11 this morning,” labourer António José Balhota, 50, told us. “I was lucky to get one!” At 2pm, there were still 20 people to go before his turn. What was he doing here? “They’ve taken my child support benefit away again. They did it once before. They send you a letter; tell you you’re losing it, or having it reduced – and of course give you the option to queue up and complain within a certain number of days. It’s a terrible pressure for people.

In a way, I think the authorities just want to break people down, make them give up. But I refuse to give up. I’m sitting it out. I am also here because after years of being without a job, my wife has suddenly received a letter to say she owes social security €107. They say they overpaid her. I need to find out why they think we owe them €107.”

Luiana Nascimento, 34, arrived around lunchtime with her heavily pregnant sister Thelma, 26. “We were lucky. There were no “senhas”, but a woman who couldn’t wait any longer gave us her’s. We only have a few more people to go”. Thelma is at the offices chasing benefit that has been promised for three months. “It’s terrible living this way.” She shakes her head. Her sister was laid off by the town council last November. “I’m originally from the Alentejo,” she explained. “They think we’re donkeys…the first people to be sacked are always those who don’t know anyone within the “câmara”. It’s called a “cunha” here. If you don’t have one, you’re out. So I was out, after six years. They haven’t even given me the money due for the time I’d worked…” What’s to be done? “The only way forward will be revolution!” Luiana shrugs. “We need a revolution - and we need a proper leader!”

Arriving for the afternoon shift, we manage to speak – again off the record – to another official. “We’re really not allowed to talk to journalists. It’s not right. People should be aware of what’s going on - but the authorities won’t allow it. This is not a democracy at all. “These people that come here everyday, they may be numbers to the authorities – but we have to look them in the eyes. To us they are families suffering a terrible social drama. “We take this home with us everyday. I even feel bad if I go shopping – because I know there are so many people out there that have no money to spend on anything”. What did this official think lay in store for the Algarve in 2012?

“It’s getting worse. People used to be able to work the season, at least. The summer was good, the winter was bad – but now the summer is rapidly reducing to only one sure month: August. The rest of the time, there is no assurance of work. “There is simply no way the Algarve can survive like this”.

At almost the last moment on press day we received on-the-record comments from the Director of Social Services in Faro, Ofélia Ramos. She told us: “The situation we are facing today – namely an increase in unemployment, has created a new phenomenon among social problems. We have to act in the best way possible to help those at risk of social exclusion.

This will involve reducing the high rates of poverty we have through the National Micro-credit Programme – designed to develop work and solidarity programmes through IPSS organisations, the Miséricordias and other entities involved in social welfare support.” Ramos added that social services were well aware that “no one should be left behind” in an era when hardships and difficulties were at their greatest.