“Bread, peace, housing and education”. On the small sign that José exhibits are the words of Sergio Godinho, author of committed songs, who had taken refuge in France to flee poverty under the dictatorship of Salazar. In the “Vida Justa” (Just Life) demonstration that took place in Lisbon last week, José Araujo, a French teacher, marched mainly for his colleagues. “Many are precarious. They are sent to the other side of the country to work. They have to take a second home and don’t have a penny to go home for the weekend to see their families back home. It’s a tragedy “, he said in his impeccable French.
Accommodation in Lisbon is prohibitive
The “Vida Justa” demonstration was a first, called by many citizen groups. It brought together 10,000 people (equivalent to 100,000 in Paris) in the streets of the capital, young people from the city center marching alongside suburbanites sometimes from the former African colonies of Portugal. Like Ricardina from Camarate, a district in the east of the city, near the airport. «Even in the suburbs there are no more apartments. People fall back on the periphery and everything is more expensive. It gets hard and it gets worse,” explains the young woman.
Accommodation in Lisbon is prohibitive. A survey places the Portuguese capital at the level of Barcelona, and more expensive than Madrid. At the end of 2022, you had to pay €1,500 per month for an average-sized apartment, i.e. + 48.7% compared to 2021! However, the average disposable income is €1,600 gross. The speculation is partly fueled by foreign companies’ appetite for low wages and benefits. In particular call centers or shared resources, which absorb a lot of manpower that must be accommodated. The use of non-chosen roommates is frequent. This is the case of Isabelle, a Frenchwoman who has been living in Lisbon for three years. «I pay €300 in rent and my two roommates €400. I’m happy. I had a lot of problems with the previous owner,” explains this 56-year-old woman. His room this time is spacious and healthy, which is rarely the case.
Remedies that don’t satisfy anyone
To combat the housing crisis, the government of socialist António Costa has just announced a package of measures which also includes the end of the emblematic “golden visas”. They were allocated to non-Europeans, in return for large investments in real estate or other, which brought in, in ten years, 7 billion euros in Portugal, modernized the habitat of the capital and increased the price of housing. They have had their day, as the head of government pointed out.
On the other hand, another measure makes people cringe. It concerns the owners of tourist accommodation, the “Airbnb”. They will be overtaxed if they do not return their homes to the traditional rental circuit. A perfectly unfair measure, considers Tania who manages three apartments in Mouraria, a district in the center of Lisbon. “It’s my livelihood and that of the people to whom I subcontract work. I don’t have to deprive myself of my income and pay the piper of previous deregulation that brought speculation,” this entrepreneur, passionate about her job, gets carried away. This Wednesday 1is March, she joins the other owners for a completely new event in Lisbon.
As for the measures against the housing crisis, they are under study and should not come into force before April 2023.