Housing: Popular warn that access “is increasingly difficult” in Vila Real

Cerca of a hundred people gathered today, in the center of Vila Real, to warn that in this inner city also access to housing is “more and more difficult” for families and students.

The popular responded to the call of the collective “You can’t live like this anymore” and joined the Vila Real Court to participate in a popular assembly.

Through space they spread improvised posters where you could read messages like: “We want houses, promises no”, “I no longer need, I am here for those who need”, “I wanted to eat, but I went to pay the rent”, “I look for a house, not a miracle, “We don’t want to survive in freedom, we want to live with dignity” and “At night we study, by day we work part-time to pay the rent”.

“ We are gathered here to show that Vila Real is no exception to the economic crisis that the country is going through. What we note is that the price of houses has gone up enormously”, said Lusa Márcia Fraga, 48, a teacher of the first cycle.

The teacher made a point of associating herself with the initiative that took place today in Vila Real, which she said was “civil and partisan”.

“ I think that right now, with all these difficulties for young people, it is killing a generation, it is not supporting a generation ", stressed, considering that if the new rent law has been applied will increase the difficulties to pay the home income.

Marcia Fraga exemplified with her own daughter's case.

“ The only thing that does not let her emancipate herself to constitute her nuclear family is the fact that, both she and her boyfriend work, but the amount cannot face a building of the house or to rent an apartment ", told.

Although this is a town in the interior, the teacher described the rents in Vila Real “as exorbitant” in relation to the incomes of the families and the increase in the cost of living.

“It is a city that cannot be isolated from the problems of the country and the economic problems at the moment, it is the housing, it is in the shopping cart of the supermarket, it is in the trips. I, for example, go every day to Pinhão ", stressed.

Margarida Nogueira is a psychologist and is interning. He is from Porto, but studied and works in Vila Real and said he lived and still live the drama of rent and housing.

“ At the moment I am still in internship, so what I receive is not a technical salary and it is not enough to face expenses and to pay an income because I have to be here and have to make this effort while I do not have access to the profession and it is difficult ", highlighted.

About Vila Real, he said that he does not find “a city properly expensive, but wages do not exactly follow the cost of living that he feels” and “incomes have increased greatly and it is not easy to cope with this expense”.

During the popular assembly there were testimonies of parents concerned about the future of their children, about the difficulties in accessing a house, about the elderly and the costs of the homes and rents charged to students without a receipt, there was also talk about the right to demonstration, the protests against mining in Covas do Barroso (Boticas) and also about the alleged immigrants who sleep in shops and on poor farms.

The claims claimed are made by measures for the recovery of vacant buildings for affordable housing, to halt real estate speculation, the creation of taxes on large economic groups, limits to the increase in rents, reduced fuel prices and also called for “more solidarity capacity”.

The initiative, which included the performances of local artists Emmy Curl and Bié (Rafael Fernandes), took place after protests for the housing that began in Porto and then in Lisbon.

In this popular assembly it was decided to organize new actions to fight in Vila Real.