Oscar, with nowhere else to go. Credit: EWN
Back, by no demand whatsoever, the naked homeless exhibitionist has returned to the busiest streets of Fuengirola. Stark naked, hurling crude and misogynistic language at women in the street, and at the children of holidaymakers, a trade that is essential to the economy of the Costa del Sol.
Just two days before, police and an ambulance crew were seen wheeling him away on a stretcher. Now that same man is back, terrifying passers-by and threatening their physical wellbeing with suggestions of possible communicable disease on his bare legs.
Some claim he is a victim of mental health issues who needs our sympathy and that he needs help to get back on his (dressed) feet. Others claim he is a threat to society, not least the business owners who survive on the tourist trade now being frightened off by this one man. And, the claim from the local authorities, is that there is nothing they can do.
Back on the streets, two days after being stretchered off
The man has reportedly been served multiple fines for his behaviour and arrested by the local police of Fuengirola on several occasions, but the fines go unpaid, and still he returns to show his naked parts in public, defecate on street benches, and threaten the wellbeing of passers-by. He has been trundled away by police countless times, but returns again and again, seemingly worse each time. Why?
Oscar, 51, from the Spanish city of Cordoba, says he came to Fuengirola three years ago to seek a better life, and opportunities at the coast among so much wealth. “I know one British man here, retired. He gets €4,000 a month from his pension. His wife, €3,000. There’s money here.” Oscar is no thief. He is not a menace in that sense. But, like many in Fuengirola, he arrived here seeing the chance of some sort of future.
At one point, it seems, he had a partner, an emotional friend, a Finnish woman, but she passed away. Since then, Oscar has been sleeping on the streets alone. What happened when the ambulance took him away earlier in the week? “They patched me up, and let me go. I had nowhere to go. So I came back here.”
Fines, arrests, and a man nobody wants
He is the man no one wants. A troublemaker. The problem with troublemakers who do not receive the attention they seek is that they become louder each time. Often the homeless and destitute are just handed to charities to be dealt with, much as abandoned dogs are sent to animal refuges. But it is not the job of well-meaning volunteers like Adintre to pick up the pieces every time. They are already desperately underfunded and stretched to their limit. It is the job of the tax-paid authorities. And the longer he is ignored, the worse the situation is getting for everyone.
Euro Weekly News spoke with Fuengirola artist David Pascual Arroyo, who recovered from the effects of bipolar disorder. “The problem is what happened to the mental asylums in the 1970s. Back then, they would treat these people before letting them back into the public. Since then, there’s no funding for this kind of treatment, so they just leave them on the streets. The police don’t want them, the prisons aren’t set up for them, so they are just left on the streets of Spain, again and agai, more and more” David speaks with an unparalleled authority and knowledge of the system, after he was dragged through the same remnants of a system 30 years ago, when he was diagnosed as seriously bipolar. David was lucky enough to have his family to support him through his recovery. It seems not everyone has that.
€600 a month and nowhere to sleep
Oscar says he receives some €600 from social security each month, but “you can’t even find one room sharing in Fuengirola, or anywhere else, for any less than €500 per month.”
So, what about the future? “I don’t think about that much. When the weather gets colder, I have some clothes.” He says that for now the weather is good, so he chooses to stay naked. He also shows a festering open wound on his lower belly that is painful to cover, so he remains partially covered with just a dirty, blood-stained sheet they let him take from the hospital.
“People are kind. They buy me bocadillos from a place around the corner, and sometimes give me change. I have just my pension to look forward to.” Oscar has many years before he is eligible for an old-age pension, if he lasts that long. His left leg has ballooned and turned purple, meaning he can barely walk anymore.
Oscar does not show any notable signs of problems with his mental health. He is lucid, chatty, and (to men) verbally more civil than some. He is not protesting, or calling attention to himself, at least not consciously. Inadvertently, and probably without realising it, though, his behaviour is a protest. By drawing attention to himself, by provoking disgust, and even by raising the fear of disease, he is pointing to a serious issue in Spain: abandonment. What happens when people like Oscar fall by the wayside?
So, what next? Who will take charge of a situation that cannot be allowed to continue? A hapless tourist can take off his football shirt, walk around bare-chested and receive a €200 fine, but a totally naked man is left completely alone, alarming families in the street. When will the Junta de Andalucia, or the central government, step in to clear the streets of Fuengirola of this ever-increasing problem? When will they at least admit there is a problem. Oscar is Spanish, yet he receives little from the state.
For now, Oscar is a dirty, naked man on the streets with no future, getting sicker by the day, in one of the Costa del Sol’s most popular holiday spots. What will the next person who falls by the wayside bring?
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