Protesters of Portimão create working groups to define action

Cerca of a hundred people concentrated today in the Square of the Municipality of Portimão, a protest camp for housing, which decided, in popular assembly, to create several working groups to define actions and demands in the Algarve barlavento.

Cristina Negrão, spokesman for Portimão’s camp, told the agency Lusa that it was decided to “create working groups” to “build a text” that will be presented to the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission with the protesters’ demands to address the housing problem in the Algarve.

A group will also be set up to make the “map of the situation” of housing in the Algarve barlavento, to know how many houses are returned or what measures can be taken at the camarário level, he indicated.

“ Another working group will be more focused on thinking about how we can reactivate self-management models, such as SAAL and projects of this kind here in the Algarve,” he said.

The “mobility issues” that Catarina Negrão classified as a “great problem in the Algarve” with effects on housing will also be under consideration.

Catherine Negrão also said that in the middle of the week a new Assembly should be convened and, on the 14th, a demonstration should be held.

“ We decided how we were going to organize ourselves at the level of demands and how we want to act in the territory regarding the housing crisis”, he said, referring that a group of protestors will spend the night in about a dozen tents that were installed in the Square of the Municipality of Portimão.

Besides Portimão, other Portuguese cities, such as Lisbon, Porto, Aveiro or Viana do Castelo, have also been the scene of protests for housing.

The high cost and difficulties in accessing housing are the source of a series of protests that over the past few weeks have marked the current situation in Portugal and other European countries, some of which are marked by police violence and arrests of demonstrators.

The President of the Republic, António José Seguro, appealed to the main Portuguese parties to find common solutions to address the housing problem, but meetings between the Government of AD (PSD/CDS-PP) with the Aquira and the PS ended without agreements.