Government: Solution to housing problem involves more social housing

"Prices have risen and will continue to rise. There is no solution to the housing problem without more public housing. But you can't build it overnight," Miguel Pinto Luz said yesterday, emphasizing that this is a problem for everyone, municipalities and the state.

The minister was speaking at the Greater Lisbon Summit, promoted by SIC Notícias .

In his speech, the minister argued that this is "a problem that everyone has embraced head-on, but which takes time to resolve."

"Here, the councils said they were present. They could build more housing here, and they decided to do so, and the State must be grateful for that and guarantee the financing of this (social) housing," he stated.

Referring to the issue of demolitions on the Military Slope, in Loures, in the district of Lisbon, Miguel Pinto Luz warned that "this problem is not just in Loures for now" and that the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation ( IHRU ) "has land where shacks are built every day".

The governor assured that the government is "closely monitoring" this problem in Loures and said that he does not point "the finger at those who built because they needed a place to live," nor at those who are trying to solve the problem.

"We have to look at both interests and find solutions for these families," he said, noting that we cannot return to the Lisbon Metropolitan Area of the 1980s, when shanty towns proliferated, which have since been eradicated by the Special Rehousing Plan (PER).

Stressing that "Loures is not alone," the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing admitted that "no one is unmoved by those who do not have a place to stay at night," but stated that neighborhoods with precarious housing cannot be allowed to continue to emerge.

Photo: Bruno Filipe Pires