About 200 people gathered in Coimbra against the housing crisis

Cerca of two hundred people today manifested themselves in Praça 8 de Maio, in Coimbra, to ask for answers to the housing crisis, having as one of the claims “defeat the law of evictions”.

The protesters began to focus on downtown after 3:30, screaming “I want a roof, I want a floor, I want the right to housing” and “Now that we are together, now that they see us, under the law of rents that will fall, it will fall! And live the dwelling, to resist, to resist”.

In the afternoon a tarja was placed in one of the buildings of the square where one could read “House for him that dwelleth, land for him that laboureth it.”.

“Minimum order – income = Not given”, “Egoist? Says who it is”, “Country in full employment without the right to comfort” and “Policies that scare” were some of the messages of the posters held by the participants.

Rebeca Moore, from the organization, explained to the agency Lusa that the struggle for housing has taken “very large proportions” and that it is necessary to “make very large demonstrations” and at the weekend, to join those who cannot do it during the week, since it fights for housing “is transversal to society”.

“ People arrive at the end of the month without salary, in many places the value of income is higher [of] than the average wage itself. That is why we call this concentration, because we think it absurd that there are real estate funds in Portugal to profit millions while the ordinary person who works, who makes their lives, often does not have access to dignified housing ", pointed out the representative of the platform No More of the Coimbra core.

Rebeca Moore also expressed solidarity with the camps, movements “very important, because they occupy the public space in a consistent way”, representing the same struggle.

“It’s to say ‘we can’t take it anymore, no more’. We need solutions, we need to defeat this law that we call the law of evictions and so we can begin to talk about better housing ", it went ahead.

Among the demands of this protest, he detailed, were to defeat the law of evictions, put roof to rents, the end of the purchase of real estate by real estate funds and the end to evictions.

54-year-old Paula Prada told Lusa to be at the protest for her daughters, 20- and 24-year-old students, who still live with you because they have no prospects.

“ We think we need to be here for them. I think they deserve this”, he said excited, considering that “what is going on is a shame”.

For Paula Prada, it is necessary for society to mobilize more and to realize that “change is mandatory”, one cannot continue to pretend that a problem is not happening, which, in her opinion, is “serious”.

“ And we have a government that pretends that nothing is happening, that thinks that the blame is still on those who are in need and that does nothing and that does not even want to hear them”, he criticized.

Sara Martins, 30 years old, also attended the demonstration because, over the past few years, the housing problem has “been getting worse” and even at international level, “no more”.

“ I think the people are now joining in order, in fact, to demand these rights that are enshrined in our Constitution in order to ask the Government to actually enforce them, among them housing,” Lusa said.

Investigator at the University of Coimbra, Sara Martins admitted that she had no financial stability to leave her parents' home and did not have the “bases that are necessary to build a long-term life plan”.

In addition to the concentration, a popular assembly organized by the Coimbra Housing platform is still scheduled for today.