Buying a house? “My father emigrated.” President of the IHRU generates controversy

O president of the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU), Benjamin Pereira, said on Thursday not knowing “if the current society is available for the level of sacrifice” of the previous, remembering that their own grandparents and their father emigrated “in order to have a home“. These statements are already generating controversy and are indeed classified as “deeply unhappy” by students. 

After all, what did the president of IHRU say?

“We were all young, weren’t we? (...) And we realized that difficulty. I don't know if today's society is available for the level of sacrifice our parents and grandparents made to have a home“, told journalists Benjamin Pereira in Vila Nova de Gaia (door).

Speaking about the housing demonstrations that have taken place mainly in Porto and Lisbon, and asked about whether the current generation is having less sacrifice than the previous generation, the IHRU leader said he did not want to go “that way”.

“I’m just saying that my grandparents emigrated to Brazil and Argentina so they could have a home. My father emigrated for 20 years, sacrificed his life”, he continued, and in the face of journalists’ questions about whether young people should also emigrate, said he was not “saying that”.

Asking to “complete reasoning”, Benjamin Pereira said their families emigrated “because the house was effectively a very important thing for their lives, their logistics base, as it is today”.

“There needs to be a commitment from everyone. Look, young people can organize themselves, make cooperatives. I have already received people in the IHRU who now, with their 60s and 70s, who when they were the age of the young people who are now demonstrating organized themselves, made cooperatives and made their own houses”, he said.

To stress that he made “an appeal” and not “a criticism”, Benjamin Pereira asked “all who can join” because “it is a problem that must be solved by all and young people are also part of this equation“.

Reactions to statements (“deeply unhappy”) 

The reactions to the statements of the President of the IHRU were not long before: Fabian Figueiredo, from Left Block (BE), criticised what he considered to be the “barbage” benjamin Pereira: 

“The president of IHRU earns more than 7,600€ a month and has the nerve to ask for sacrifices from young milleurists. It's a total lack of sense and shame. Quit!", wrote the sole deputy of the Left Block on social network X. 

BE's only deputy, Fabian Figueiredo, called for urgent hearing the President of the IHRU in Parliament, after his statements on the demonstrations against the crisis in this sector.

Also o Socialist Party (PS) condemned these statements, through the Vice President of the Socialist bench Luís Testa: “We are very surprised that today the President of IHRU will tell the media that young people lack a spirit of sacrifice. This is intolerable for a public leader to express himself to people, to young people, who have nothing in front of them but sacrifice“.

Luis Testa said despite being able to “sensitize a lot with the history of family life” of the president of the IHRU, the concern of the PS is with “the lives of the portuguese and especially the young“.

“ The sacrifice that this age group has ahead in its life is not compatible with jockey statements by a leader of public administration ", lamented.

The Academic Federation of Lisbon (FAL) criticized the statements made by the President of IHRU, Benjamin Pereira, on the demonstrations against the crisis in this sector. In a statement signed by President Pedro Neto Monteiro, FAL expressed disagreement with Pereira's comments, which described as “deeply unhappy”, and rejected “the normalization of sacrifices required of young people to access housing“.

On the other hand, Hugo Soares, parliamentary leader of the PSD, said do not see a “case” in Benjamin Pereira’s statements. 

“ If what the president of the IHRU – which was the I understood from the statements – [wanted] to say was: ‘Young people today do not want or should make the sacrifices that were once made and that led many Portuguese to emigrate in search of a solution for housing’ – I agree“, pointed Hugo Soares in an interview at SIC Notícias.

When the president of IHRU says that young people are not “available” to make such a sacrifice, “i agree with him: they are not and well”, highlighted the social democrat.

“ I don't see a case here, honestly. I understand that we are all having a degree of conflict in the political and public debate too high, but I do not see it in the words of the President of IHRU, because I understood them this way: ‘Young people do not want to make or make this sacrifice’. He says that young people should not emigrate, he says exactly that ", reiterated.

Between demonstrations and so-called camped demonstrations, with hundreds or thousands of protesters, the current protests against the housing crisis began in Porto on October 10 and expanded to Lisbon, but they have also motivated concentrations in other cities, days after the parliamentary approval of the new rental law, now under discussion in the specialty.