Together Gibraltar condemns the conditions of accommodation at the Queen’s Hostel

If there is something this challenging year has taught us is the value of home; stay home, stay safe.

Those of us who have reasonable homes got by. But many, far too many, continue having to resort to live in dilapidated buildings, overcrowded, unsanitary and infested with vermin. This is the deplorable state of the government-run Queen’s Hostel, one of the few places in Gibraltar that low-income workers can afford to rent.

Gibraltar is on the eve of a potential crisis situation caused by Brexit. In a worse-case scenario situation, we could find ourselves having to look south to Morocco again as we pull away from Europe. Yet it is those very people from Morocco to whom we purport to owe a debt of gratitude for their help in the 1970s that make up most of the persons living at the Hostel. While our economy and affluence has flourished over the last two decades, those workers stuck in abysmally low paid jobs suffer life in substandard corners of dereliction.

To allow premises like the workers’ hostel at the former Queen’s Hotel to fall into such terrible disrepair is an act of callous hypocrisy from a Government that regularly claims to be grateful to those Moroccan workers living there.

While there are persons of various nationalities sleeping over at this crumbling hostel, most are of Moroccan origin. Considering the disdainful treatment of this community has been ongoing for many decades now, and that different administrations have failed to adequately tackle the problem, the party believes that this problem must be recognised as one of systemic racism.   

Housing spokesperson, Jackie Anderson said: “As a civilised, humane society, that prides itself on tolerance and mutual respect, for our government to allow people to have to endure such appalling living conditions is simply unacceptable.”

“Furthermore, it is telling of a malfunctioning economy that there are no reasonable tiers of housing available for persons on different levels of income. There is housing for the affluent, and some, very limited, housing for the less affluent. And there is slum housing. That we should still offer slum housing as hostel accommodation for workers is an anachronism that puts Gibraltar to shame in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes.

The situation, as we head towards the depths of midwinter, a season when families and individuals like to gather in the warmth and security of home, can only be condemned by any rational person.”

Together Gibraltar also exhorts government to fully resource the housing department so that dedicated, appropriately skilled hostel managers and technicians can repair, refurbish and manage this accommodation pending an overhaul of our dysfunctional housing system and the potential development of alternative housing for people on low incomes.

That decades after Gibraltar turned to Morocco and asked for help with tough, unskilled jobs that kept our city going, we continue to treat this community as second-class citizens, is nothing short of a national disgrace that cannot wait to be corrected.