PS accuses Government of having aggravated “Housing Problem”

“ We have to have answers, because what the government has done so far has been aggravating a problem. I already had a problem, but it worsened the problem”, accused José Luís Carneiro in Matosinhos for the first “many meetings” under a National Auscultation Program that intends to listen to various sectors of society to “prepare the Housing strategy for the next decade”.

As an example of how the government worsened the housing problem, José Luís Carneiro pointed out that “by virtue of the so-called moderate income adopted by the government, there was an arrow increase in costs with a rent of 34%”.

“As, by the way, we always alert the government,” he said.

After visiting a new enterprise in that district of Porto built for affordable housing, the socialist leader explained that he wants to create a National Accessible Housing Service, “that integrates the efforts and normative instruments that are already available in the State”.

This is because, he considered, “Housing today is a serious problem for families, for younger people, it is perhaps the most serious problem facing the different generations, grandparents, children and grandchildren, for reasons of sustainability of living conditions on the one hand and of emancipation of younger generations on the other”.

The new National Service proposed by the PS, in addition to the existing instruments, said José Luís Carneiro, “to integrate responses from the point of view of rental support and differentiated responses for younger people”.

“ We take today the first step in a path that will lead us to the presentation of a public proposal corresponding to a National Accessible Housing Service, to mobilize the State's resource, the resource of cooperatives, the resource of associations, mobilizing architecture, engineering, construction, public and private forces for a national effort to respond to what is one of the most critical points of collective life ", explained.

José Luís Carneiro recalled that the “strategy launched by the governments of the PS”, which is now ending, allowed “delivering these 31 thousand requalified or built houses, that the Prime Minister did not have the courage to say that it was due to the planning, the investment of the governments of the PS”.

“ Now we have to launch a new programme for the next 10 years and that is what we are talking about, which means more than 380,000 houses that the country is needing, according to data from the Representative Association of Civil Construction, but there is a plan that has to be launched that integrates all the forces, services and capabilities of the State, cooperatives and the private sector to respond to this need,” he said.

And he continued: “By October we will take this walk, we will be in a position in October to publicly present our approach to what is one of the most critical problems for all generations,” he said.

Stressing that Housing “is the number one theme” of its political agenda and that “still” is not Prime Minister, José Luís Carneiro also ensured that he is “building a serious and reliable alternative”.

“ Let us be clear once again: I am not here to serve the Socialist Party, I am here to serve the country with the values and principles that founded our democracy, which are the values that guide the Socialist Party, but to serve the country and serve Portuguese society”, he said.

Asked about the start of the school year for secondary education students, the socialist leader again accused the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, of having failed.

“The Minister of Education has failed on two vital issues in which he could not fail (...) National examinations for access to higher education and the placement of students at the start of the school year. It failed on both fundamental issues ", accused.