Socialist João Soares argues that the housing crisis does not resolve without building houses, highlighting the need to go beyond bureaucratic problems around the construction of affordable housing.
© Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
16/10/2026
by
O socialist João Soares argued that the housing crisis “is not solved without building houses”, highlighting the need to go beyond bureaucratic problems around the construction of affordable housing.
“The right to housing cannot be resolved without building houses, without building social housing”, stated, in an interview on Friday night in RTP News.
From the perspective of the former mayor of Lisbon and former Minister of Culture, more than an understanding between the main two traditional parties, “it is necessary, above all, to build houses to put them on the market”.
“And some to put them on the market outside market rules. You do not build social housing for people who are unable to pay income – it is not with rents of 2,300 euros that you can solve the problems of people who are earning minimum wages. They have to be accessible houses”, explained João Soares.
The socialist gave the examples “of what was done in Lisbon” – highlighting the parish council of Benfica, which “has done an absolutely admirable job” – and what are doing the mayor of Oeiras and the mayor of Matosinhos.
In this sense, João Soares considered that there is a lack of decentralization to solve the housing problem, but “with coordination and support to avoid bureaucracy on the side of the central government”.
“ A part of the fault of what is happening in housing comes from the inability of the government to solve the housing problems in Portugal,” he said, adding to the list of guilty “localities” and “previous governments”.
“ I recognise that, even in previous governments, a lot of legislation has been produced which is an embarrassment for those who want to do things”you've taken over. “What matters here is building and building on the ground. And, on the other hand, also use the many empty houses. The Church itself has a vast heritage, and the cameras have, the House of Lisbon also has...”
In addition, it is also important, he argued, to offer housing under conditions to the middle class.
On the demonstrations that have taken place, João Soares stressed that “they are always a reminder and they are a basic democratic right, [but] they must be contained in what democratic freedom is and, finally, peacefully”.
“ I do not think there is a problem of extremism and there is clearly not. There was already an extremism of extreme left in the 1970s [...] that caused serious public policy problems. But at this moment, the extremism that exists is an extremism of Right, of extreme right and of populism ", said.
João Soares refused the idea of the need for a kind of ASAE for housing, suggested by Helena Roseta yesterday at the same television station: “We don’t need to create more structures,” he said.
On Thursday night, from 7 p.m., about three thousand people concentrated to demonstrate their right to housing, following a camp that began on Saturday and had municipal cleaning intervention on Monday, first, and a police charge in the early hours of Thursday, after which resulted four dozen wounded, with the organization to ensure that it was always peaceful and the PSP to defend that there was “resistance”.
The last concentration moved for a few minutes to the House of Porto, in front of which the protest took place before returning to Praça D. João I, where it has been going since it began.
The organizers called for the return to the site on Saturday, with the city's permission, throughout the day, in parallel with the action called for that day by CGTP.