On the 15th of March there was an article in the Ideal newspaper concerning a couple that was living in the back of a car, after losing their jobs and finally their home. Such was the sympathy evoked by the article that the following day the same newspaper announced that the couple hand been offered work and a house in which to live. Read on.

The couple, Juan and Eva, had been living in the car on a piece of empty land since the 7th of February in Zubia, which is a satellite town of Granada City. Both of them had been unemployed for over three years, so all their savings and unemployment benefit had long expired, so with no way to pay the rent, they were finally evicted from their flat in Calle Canario, Zubia.

The winters in Granada are real winters, not like those that we have down on the coast, so living in that car was certainly not a ‘campers’ holiday.’ Fortunately, their two daughters of eleven and three years of age had been taken in by a Moroccan couple. The family was reunited after school each day, in the afternoon until bed time.

But it all changed with that article published in the provincial press. The couple has been offered jobs by the owner of a cleaning firm. Another couple, upon hearing that Juan had worked in the building trade, offered him a temporary job.

But people’s generosity didn’t end there because another couple, who have a holiday flat in Las Gabias, has let the couple live there until they find alternative accommodation: “We only use it on the odd weekend and we think that it is the only decent thing to do to let a couple who have been reduced to living in the back of a car use it,” they explained.

The owner of the cleaning firm, Enrique González, explained that his company hadn’t been going long but already employed 900 workers, most of whom are women. “As soon as I read the article, I got onto our personnel department and told them that we had to do something for this couple.” The result is a permanent contract for Eva and one for a few days for Juan.

The only way to finish this article is to quote the words of gratitude from Juan and Eva: “My wife and I want to give thanks to everybody. It is amazing just how much people have been moved to help us. Yesterday, two municipal police came round to say that the Mayor of Zubia wanted to talk with us…”

(News: Zubia, Granada, Andalucia)