Between Saturday and Sunday, Aveiro, Beja, Braga, Coimbra, Covilhã, Elvas, Faro, Lisbon, Portimão, Porto, Setúbal, Viana do Castelo and Viseu will hold a day of struggle for housing and present an Emergency Demand Booklet for the problem, with twelve points.

First of all, they propose rent control “as an urgent and necessary measure at this time” and, in parallel, an increase in the duration of rental contracts to ten years, highlighted André Escoval, one of the spokespeople for the Casa para Viver platform and member of the Porta a Porta movement, in statements to Lusa.

The platform also identifies “the need” to limit local accommodation, prohibiting new licenses and ending tax benefits.

Another demand is to stop “all forms of eviction without decent housing alternatives”. “We cannot worsen a problem that is already serious in itself”, stresses André Escoval.

On the other hand, “we need to put all empty houses on the rental market, first and foremost public assets,” and excluding second homes and immigrants’ homes.

“Everything else needs to be mobilised immediately to respond to this problem”, argued André Escoval.

The construction of more affordable housing is also included in the report, as “a structural and necessary measure”, but one that does not have a quick effect.

“The problem we are experiencing today is a national emergency and requires immediate responses. Using empty houses for the rental market is an extremely urgent and necessary measure that needs to be taken as a political option to solve the problem now. We do not want solutions for tomorrow,” claimed André Escoval.

On the other hand, they advocate increased monitoring of illegal rentals.

“We are at a time when illegal rentals have a very significant presence in our country and there is no monitoring entity. Nowadays, it is much easier to have an eviction than to have an entity that monitors the existence of illegal contracts or that enforces the contracts that have been established,” he said.

André Escoval pointed out that all the measures proposed in the list of demands “are political and do not actually cost the public treasury money,” safeguarding investment in public housing.

“We cannot continue with 2% of public housing stock. A structural option is needed in housing. If there is money for war, there also has to be money and, above all, there has to be money for an effective public housing stock”, he argued.

Recalling that the housing crisis “has been worsening for a long time and rapidly”, the Casa para Viver platform sees the Government going “in the opposite direction”, maintaining the status of non-habitual residents and ‘golden’ visas, “discriminating between immigrants based on their investment capacity”.

For this reason, it does not expect “[change] to happen by the will of the government” and has therefore called for a weekend of “struggle” in defense of the right to housing.

“This has to take us to the streets, expand, be more, impose on this Government what it does not want to do”, it appeals.

In Lisbon, the rally will take place on Saturday, at 3:30 pm, at Largo de Camões, then continuing to Arco da Rua Augusta.

In Porto, the demonstration will be on Sunday, at 2:30 pm, from Praça da Batalha to Aliados.