If someone knocks at the door of the solidarity restaurants, they now sit back down at the table again

People who are homeless, unemployed, dependent, migrants, someone who has had bad luck in life, something temporary or in need of a deeper response, a health problem, physical or mental, that lives in or outside of Porto. Alone or as a family. Anyone who knocks on the door of the city's solidarity restaurants, in Baixa, Batalha and Hospital Joaquim Urbano, will now return to sitting at the table for a more comfortable, dignified and safe meal. They are 560 every day of the year and a fourth space is coming in the Boavista area.

It has been two years receiving food in a package to eat elsewhere to mitigate the spread of the new coronavirus. Therefore, this "is an important day", confesses the councilman with the department of Social Action. And the main word on this menu is dignity.

"The goal of the solidarity restaurant," says Fernando Paulo, "is to allow a nutritionally balanced meal, in a dignified way." The plan has always been made with the opening of four solidarity restaurants, in order to expand the response in the territory, or, in the words of the councilman, "leaving no one behind".

“In three to four months,” a new space will open up in the western zone, in Massarelos. Like the others, it is born to "provide assistance to those who live on the street or are homeless". But, Fernando Paulo recalls, “there are families with vulnerabilities or people in the most diverse situations to which we also seek to respond”, since “future perspectives are not the best, because social problems are getting worse”.

The need to cover the western area has long been identified to replace street teams (who will continue to distribute in specific locations in the city) and is of “fundamental importance for the integrated work we have been doing”, says the councilman, namely with the opening of the assisted consumption room.

As Fernando Paulo says, the solidarity restaurants of Porto offer meals, but not only. The councilman also underlines how "it is important to talk to people, to give them the opportunity to fit into what are the social responses that the city managed to create for social reintegration, to support them according to what is their life project".

"Today we have many answers, fortunately," adds Fernando Paulo, referring to the Municipal Strategy for the Integration of People in Homelessness, which includes the social network and the partnership with NPISA and the "more than 65 partner institutions", a response "safer, more appropriate, and that we consider more dignified, which meets the expectations of people".

Within this strategy, the councilman also recalled the presence of the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, this month, in Porto, to "sign a protocol with the Associação Seis for 40 more beds in shared apartments", boosting the integration process "with greater dignity".

Being present for the see-throughs of society

With a municipal investment in the order of 400 thousand euros annually, the solidarity restaurants are a response of the city that is made of several arms. If this was not the case, Fernando Paulo assures us, “the investment would have to be double”.

The meals are prepared by the Serviços de Assistência Organizações de Maria (SAOM), with donations of food products from the Continente and Mercadona hypermarkets, as well as from the Food Bank (Banco Alimentar).

The spaces are provided by the Irmandade Nossa Senhora do Terço, the Centro Hospitalar do Porto and the Associação Católica Internacional ao Serviço da Juventude Feminina (ACISJF).

Next to the Centro de Apoio ao Sem-Abrigo (CASA) is the management of the operation of restaurants when it comes to serving meals, sanitizing spaces and attracting volunteers. To these entities is added the experience of the Grupo de Ação Social (GAS) Porto in the social monitoring aspect to the users of these restaurants.

For CASA, the "great concern is, first, to reach all those who seek us. And then reach everyone not only in the food area, but also in the subsequent support ", says the coordinator of that organization, referring to the existence of a case manager.

Natalia Coutinho reinforces that “the importance, the symbolism of returning to the face-to-face regime is immense” because “it is very unworthy for a person to have to queue, to be leaning against a car, waiting for their turn to give them food to eat…on the street”. In the solidarity restaurants of Porto, people "come in, sit down, have cutlery, crockery, everything is fine, and we are the ones who serve them, we are the ones who ask if it is okay, if you want to repeat. We are the ones who talk to them.”

The head of that institution regrets how these people “are, many of them, transparent in society”. “We tried to show them that they are people like us,” she adds, recalling how “some of the cases have only bad luck in life and have ended up in a situation of absolute vulnerability. And that can happen to anyone.”

Looking for volunteers to feed the soul

The pandemic has thrown the number of volunteers from four hundred to 150 and currently there are about 30 dailies. Natalia Coutinho reinforces how "we are here to give ourselves, our time, our care, our attention. The food is there, but we actually give a lot more than that.”

Who understands this idea well is Renata Caldeira, a volunteer at GAS Porto, an organization that tries to "feed their heart, their soul. Our volunteering involves being, talking, listening, connecting these people to society. Bring the dignity that, in many, has been lost for many years”, she explains.

To be able to sit back at the table for a meal was, according to Renata Caldeira, something long-awaited, because “We heard people say that they were excited to return, for two reasons: because they were able to hang out among themselves inside and to be able to hang out with us outside”. Now there is more time to “be present, be a friendly shoulder, not judge.”

“Maybe, in that day, we were the only ones who talked to that person,” adds Natália Coutinho, sharing the “immense satisfaction” that is “to know that, somehow, we make a difference and that this, effectively, is real. We come out much richer than what we lost in terms of time. It's …it's love. It's love.”