Thread: Spanish discontent as soup kitchens spring up

From The Times
May 11, 2009

Spanish discontent as soup kitchens spring up

Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards are facing ruin as bankruptcies and unemployment rise and the economy heads for meltdownGraham Keeley in Madrid

Faced with losing his home if he cannot find €6,000 (£5,350) by the end of this week, Javier MartÃ*nez has resorted to desperate measures: the unemployed father-of-four is selling his own flat and throwing in another, free.

The three-bedroom apartment in Tarazona, near Zaragoza in eastern Spain, is on the market for only €57,000. The former construction project manager is including a one-bedroom flat that he had been letting in an attempt to entice a buyer.

“I need to find the cash by May 15 or I may be declared bankrupt. I must provide for my children,â€

Hello, Spain! Welcome to America!

Jobless Spaniards sell kidneys to transplant tourists

Matthew Campbell

A MACABRE traffic associated with poor countries in Asia and Latin America has sprung up for the first time in western Europe as the credit crunch reduces Spaniards to selling organs to “transplant touristsâ€

There was a special section on this on a tv newscast recently. Banks are now foreclosing on people who are only late in making as few as two mortgage payments after they have lost jobs: apartment owners are now literally putting into the streets families who are late with their rent because the father is now out of work. These are the sorts of people whom lending institutions and landlords used to work with to "get them over a rough spot" because they are otherwise solid, responsible people. Some of those being interviewed were hysterical over with the loss of a home on which they had been paying for years - heartbreaking, really.