Queen’s Hotel residents feel ‘exhausted and abandoned’ as they face ‘relocation’ again

Close to 50 residents will be evicted from the Queen’s Hotel hostel tomorrow morning and relocated to the Sunrise Motel.

For the residents, the relocation is upsetting, frustrating and has made them feel like second-class citizens.

The conditions within the Queen’s Hotel have deteriorated over the years with the men living in squalid conditions.

But moving to the Sunrise Motel has raised even more concern about their living conditions and comes after years of what they feel amounts to neglect.

On Wednesday morning, the residents crowded outside the hostel asking how they will be adequately housed in the Sunrise Motel, which already accommodates residents.

Some of the residents said they are waiting for Government rental homes and have nowhere else to go.

Many are from the Moroccan community, having arrived in Gibraltar decades ago for work, and have been moved from hostel to hostel for most of their lives.

Now in their later years of life, the men just have one wish: a place they can call home.

Representing the residents, Youssef Choati el Alcha said this relocation has destroyed them both inside and out.

“They are exhausted, they feel abandoned,” Mr Choati el Alcha said.

“[Gibraltar] is their second home. They have always lived here, from when they were strong young men who arrived with the promise of work.”

Mr Choati el Alcha said that, after more than 40 years of work, many have grown old and are sick, and after visiting the Sunrise Motel he does not see how there is enough capacity.

He said the Queen’s Hotel has been allowed to decline, with lifts left unrepaired and no cleaners to maintain the hostel, leaving residents feeling like they have been “treated like animals”.

“There are people who are sick with cancer,” he said.

He described how an elderly man recently died of bone cancer and could hardly climb the steps to his room.

“He would sit there crying because there is no lift. That's inhumane,” Mr Choati el Alcha said.

“It doesn't feel like we're in the First World.”

“And why this mistreatment of us?”

“When you talk to Llanitos, almost everyone says my best friend is Moroccan, I went with him to Tangier, I went with him to that place. When they closed the border, they helped us.”

“Then when it comes to helping a little, just a little, no one gives us a hand.”

“It's just that we are alone. They treat us like we are dogs, cockroaches, nothing.”

Mr Choati el Alcha said the residents were informed of the relocation by a notice posted on the Hotel’s entrance.

The relocation means the Queen’s Hotel will be demolished to make space for the mixed-use ‘Queen's Gate’ development, which will feature residential and commercial spaces.

Resident Robert Montovio said he will not move out of the hostel on Friday.

Mr Montovio said he has been living there for four years waiting for a Government flat.

“This has been affecting me more and more, there are cockroaches everywhere and the lifts don’t work,” he said.

He echoed Mr Choati el Alcha that the living conditions are inhuman but, even so, he does not want to move to the Sunrise Motel as he fears conditions may be worse.

Action for Housing’s Henry Pinna said some of the Queen’s Hotel residents have died waiting for flats.

“The Moroccans who came here originally when the frontier closed, they were placed in the Casemates hostel, from there to Buena Vista barracks hostel, and from there [Queen’s Hotel], and from here, the Sunrise Motel,” Mr Pinna said.

“People that have been here now 50 years have never had a home on their own, they have been moved from hostel to hostel in bad conditions and with no prospect of ever being given a home.”

Mr Pinna said that some of the residents have received Government homes, but the 50 men in the Queen’s have been left out.

“They are Gibraltarians, they have paid their taxes, their social insurance, they should have the same rights,” Mr Pinna said.

The difficulty, Mr Pinna said, is that they are single men in need of one-bedroom flats, which are in short supply.

He said there are residents who have been in the waiting list for over 12 years for a one-bedroom flat.

“Some die waiting. I’ve had one who died a month ago waiting to be given a flat,” Mr Pinna said.

“Most of them are in their late 70s or 80s, and they can go back home… but healthcare there is negligible.”

Mr Pinna said Gibraltar has become their home.

“In the meantime, we treat them like trash,” Mr Pinna said.

Over the years, the Gibraltar Government has proposed plans for a hostel, namely one on the east side, but no progress has been made.

Mr Pinna said this hostel should have been built before deciding to relocate the tenants of the Queen’s Hotel.

“That fell through, and now comes the eleventh hour and they’re out,” he said.

Member of the Moroccan community Hasna el Gharbaoui watched on as the men, many of whom are her friends, stood outside the Queen’s.

She was moved to tears.

“These men have given a lot to Gibraltar, and I am so sad to watch them going through this terrible time,” she said.

“These men have helped lift Gibraltar, we love Gibraltar, we are children of Gibraltar and brothers and sisters to the Llanitos.”

“I’m asking the Government to look after these people and the city of Gibraltar.”

She said the men are “living like rats” and called their treatment inhumane.

“My heart breaks looking at these men today,” she said.

The Government told the Chronicle that residents at the Queen’s Hotel are being relocated, as opposed to evicted, because the facility will close in a few days’ time.

“The Queen’s was always intended as a temporary measure to deal with the crisis posed by the need to vacate the Buena Vista Hostel,” a Government spokesman said.

“There is currently sufficient bed capacity at the Sunrise Motel.”

“A new extension to the Sunrise Motel, as well as the full refurbishment of the existing facility, is already at an advanced design stage, and this will cater for the requirements of Gibraltar going forward.”