Carlos Moedas announced this Saturday an investment of 85 million euros in the municipal districts of the city, in addition to the 40 million already planned.
In a speech at the conference marking the 30th anniversary of the Special Rehousing Program (PER), the Mayor of Lisbon underlined that these funds are supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). According to Carlos Moedas, the municipality currently has “a thousand homes under construction”, in addition to another thousand built or renovated in the past year, representing an investment of 40 million euros in the renovation of the municipal districts.
“We are really accelerating,” assured the social-democratic mayor, who described the vacancy in the city’s districts, as well as the lack of development over the past ten years, as a “scourge”. According to figures from Gebalis, the company that manages the municipality’s housing stock, Lisbon currently has 66 districts with municipal public housing, with about 23,000 homes and an estimated resident population of about 64,000 people.
In his speech, Moedas again defended greater involvement of local authorities in the package of measures announced by António Costa and said he was “a little angry” that the councils had no say. Coins stood in stark contrast to the Special Rehousing Program (PER) which 30 years ago – with Cavaco Silva as Prime Minister – defined the objective of rehousing slum dwellers in the 28 municipalities of the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto. In total, about 45,000 families will be able to be relocated thanks to the PER. “The PER stands for a pragmatic policy, because it had exactly that capacity: it went through all political forces, it tried to involve everyone and that is essential in housing policy,” said Moedas.
Isaltino Morais, mayor of Oeiras, who was one of the guests at the conference marking the 30th anniversary of the PER, also defended that the program presented by the government “needs to be reviewed” and expected that the forced renting of vacant houses would not, it will work: “The landlords who have been in hysterics lately because they were told they were moving into their empty houses, rest assured because it won’t work. It doesn’t stand a chance”.
45,000
Number of families living in precarious housing and relocated under the special rehousing program launched 30 years ago by the government led by Cavaco Silva.
with Lusa
Source: DN
