Mayor’s office owes $166,000 to street people NGO

The presence of indigents in the main avenues and corners of Panama City worsened with the start of the covid-19 pandemic and has become a problem for which no one wants to take responsibility while the mayor’s office owes$166,000  to a foundation that cares for elderly street people.

There is no official census of, the homeless population that roams Panama but the Municipality estimates that there are about 500 people living on the streets, of the capital.

In March 2020, Frank Archibold, a religious leader in Calidonia, called the situation “a ticking time bomb.” Months before, at the end of 2019, the scenario became more complex after Panama, mayor José Luis Fábrega, withdrew the subsidy to several NGOs that served this population, such as Remar.

Now, over two years later, the Mayor’s Office announces that it will implement a program called “Give yourself an opportunity”, which aims to offer the group medical evaluation and voluntary transfer to a rehabilitation center or before a justice of the peace, in case of any complaint.

Deputy Mayor Judy Meana acknowledged that it is not an easy situation and the support of other entities, such as the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Health, is required.

Meana said it was decided to enable the El Marañón gym, in Santa Ana, where people are taken and served. However, she said that it is a public health problem since 90% of the homeless have a drug addiction or health problems.

On Thursday, May 5 the Mayor’s Office carried out a tender for the construction of a municipal shelter in Las Garzas, in eastern Panama.

According to the specifications, the reference price was  $3.7 million and the shelter includes two pavilions, one with a capacity for 150 men and the other for up to 100 women. There will be an intermediate area for people undergoing rehabilitation or detoxification.

The tender specifies that the shelter will have kitchen and dining areas, a laundry room, and an infirmary.

On May 5, the presentation of the economic proposals took place, with two companies participating. Both bid $3.7 million. The work should be ready in a year

Image washing
For Adrián Almeida, director of the Remar Foundation, everything indicates that with this program they want to “wash” the image of the mayor, who in 2019 turned his back on more than 60 older adults that the Mayor’s Office had sent to Remar facilities and for which he never responded

In fact, Almeida said that now there are fewer because in the last two years seven of them have died for various reasons, “Since the municipality stopped helping us in 2019, we have had to take care of this population, which leaves a lot to say about this administration,” he said.

The Mayor’s Office and Remar had signed an agreement in 2001 through which Remar undertook to receive 200 people that the  Office rescued from the streets. In exchange, the local government paid, a symbolic figure of $2.77 a day per person.

“They call it a subsidy, but in reality, it is a payment for a service that we provide them. The municipality does not subsidize Remar,” said, Almeida who is still waiting for the  Office to cancel what is owed to them, about $166,000.

In recent weeks, representatives of the Mayor’s Office tried to approach the foundation, but they were informed that they do not want to work with this administration, since the experience in recent years with Mayor Fábrega has not been good.