Pedro (29) has suffered from severe autism since he was a child. His life was always more difficult than others, but everything became even more complicated when, after collapsing at home, he underwent emergency surgery on his head. Since then, he has lost most of his mobility, making it impossible for him to move on his own, let alone go up and down from his house, a third floor without an elevator. “Every day is hell. Going downstairs also gives him a lot of vertigo. I can’t imagine how he feels but it obviously scares him”, explains Rosa, his mom, who hopes that someone will take pity on them and offers them a similar rental in a building with an elevator or on a first floor.
Pedro goes to an occupational center every day, to which he comes and goes in the bus provided by the entity that manages it. This routine is key for him and for the family. But the stairs, which have never been a problem, are now a huge challenge. His mother lives by and for him and cries out for social housing. But they are 1637th on the waiting list. She does not know how they will make it, she and her son Ramon, go up and down to Pedro every day, twice, with great difficulty. It is inaccessible and it is no life.
A powerful position in social services assured them, a year ago, that their story had marked them and that it would get them a house on a first floor or with an elevator, regardless of where they were on the waiting list. However, months went by with no news from the institution until one day it finally arrived: nothing they were told was going to happen. No one seemed to know anything about what they had once been promised. Their mother, in desperation, had packed up part of their humble home waiting for the day to leave. What she never imagined was that it would never come.
