The housing crisis is back on the streets

"Lower rents, raise wages." The stories repeat themselves, the appeals also and the cries are the same. The housing crisis took to the streets again this Thursday, June 22nd, this time with a concentration of several collectives in Largo de Camões, in Lisbon. The protest was organized by the movement House to Live Inwhich aggregates several of these collectives.

After organizing the largest housing demonstrations in recent decades in Portugal, which took tens of thousands to the streets in seven major Portuguese cities on April 1, o House to Live In protested again on the streets, this time only in the capital. Under the motto "The More Housing does not Serve the People!", the movement criticizes the measures presented by the Government "for including the facilitation of evictions, eschewing the lowering and tabling of rents, refusing mandatory contract renewal, and implementing weak and temporary rent support" - said in a press release - mentioning that the package More Housing "is nothing but a derisory propaganda stunt".

"The Mais Habitação program doesn't solve any of the problems of those who work in Portugal and can't live with dignity because they don't have access to adequate housing for their income. Instead, this program accentuates the trend towards speculation, with taxpayers paying the high rents and the speculation of landlords and landladies. Totally insufficient subsidies to rents and credits relieve some (little), but only temporarily, and feed the banks, high rents, and the pockets of those who practice them, at the expense of the public budget. The transfer of public land to the private sector, the exemptions and subsidies for more private construction, the continuation of the recipe for liberalization of construction, forgoing proper inspection and licensing of projects, the promotion of increased construction in important agricultural and ecological areas, and the increase in construction that is fostered with harmful environmental and climatic impacts, are more of the same: the neoliberal recipe that got us here and that will solve nothing in the short, medium and long term."You can read in the movement's demands.

The Platform House to Live In contests the setbacks that the Government has since presented the package More Housing earlier this year: for example, the extraordinary tax under Local Accommodation "first it went from 35% to 20% and now it is only at 15%"; and a , whose formula for calculating the rent support was changed making this measure "into a mere propaganda issue, (...) with no impact on the relief of those who pay too much for house rent"points out the movement. "In addition to this, measures such as coercive leasing may be rejected and sabotaged by municipalities, which will be in charge of surveying vacant properties, and exempting large landlords who engage in speculation."

"The demands of the Home to Live movement are clear: instead of the lack of political will of a government that insists on remaining submissive to the real estate lobby, it calls for an end to evictions and housing seizures, creation of ceilings on rents never exceeding 20% of household income, automatic renewal of all rental contracts, reduction of interest and profits of banks, an end to tourist apartments, an end to incentives for digital nomads, non-habitual residents and real estate speculators, and collectivization of empty homes of real estate companies, investment funds and large landlords"they clarify. "The movement will continue to protest against the embarrassing silence of the government, which has turned a deaf ear to the yearnings and demands that tens of thousands of protesters clamored for last April 1. The executive conversely chooses to continue its propaganda maneuver embodied through the More Housing program, which lacks the necessary will to break with the policies responsible for the housing crisis we are experiencing."

O House to Live In They want the Government and the Parliament to take measures to stop what they say is real estate and financial speculation and they say that it is necessary to fulfill the Right to Housing, foreseen in article 65 of the Portuguese Constitution. The Movement House to Live In is subscribed by more than a hundred organizations, some specifically dedicated to the housing issue, such as Associação Habita!, Associação de Inquilinos Lisbonenses, Stop Evictions, Chão das Lutas, Porta a Porta, Movimento Referendo Pela Habitação, Morar Em Lisboa, Habitação Hojebut also civic, environmental, feminist, and LGBTQIA+ (sexual and gender minorities), anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and labor rights associations (including the Greater Lisbon Teachers Union, the Union of Health, Solidarity and Social Security Workers, and the Inflexible Precarious), and other local, community, and neighborhood collectives.

Several of these collectives were present in the gathering this Thursday. This was the case of Housing Referendum Movementwhich aims to mobilize the population of Lisbon to hold a local referendum to stop local housing. This movement has been collecting signatures since the beginning of this year so that the City Council can ask for such a referendum - between 5000 and 7500 signatures are needed, and there is still a long way to go.

The protest in Largo Camões gathered mostly young people, who held up phrases like "We want housing for everyone", "Houses to live in against speculation", and "Stop evictions". The gathering gathered around a hundred people; one of them was BE deputy and coordinator Mariana Mortágua. Spokespersons from the various collectives spoke into the microphone, and testimonies from people affected by the housing crisis were also heard, namely about the evictions happened in Loures.