Protests Called at Housing Institute in Lisbon and Porto Over Rent Support Delays
The social movement Porta a Porta has scheduled demonstrations to be held at the entrances of the Instituto da Habitação e da Reabilitação Urbana (IHRU) in both Lisbon and Porto. The protests, set for next Monday, the 27th, between 7:30 and 9:30 AM, are a direct response to what the movement describes as the institute's failure to process and pay out essential rent support subsidies to tenants.
In its public call to action, the group demands “an IHRU at the service of true public housing policies.” It denounces a system that currently leaves “tenants without answers, rent supports unpaid, [and] young people waiting for Porta 65,” a well-known rental subsidy program for youth. The housing rights movement has been a vocal critic of the IHRU's operational capacity, highlighting processing delays that it claims are “more than a year,” a situation that is reportedly causing “despair for several families across the country.”
André Escoval, a spokesperson for Porta a Porta, recently told the Lusa news agency that the situation is “very serious.” He stated that the IHRU “has had a brutal inability to respond to the various programs” under its management. A key point of failure, according to the movement, is the inaccessibility of the IHRU’s primary communication channels, including telephone and internet portals. This breakdown forces individuals to travel to the only two physical service centers in the country, located in Lisbon and Porto, to address their cases. This is a significant hurdle for those living in other parts of Portugal, turning a national issue into a logistical and financial burden for citizens. For anyone dealing with Portuguese bureaucracy, engaging English-speaking real estate lawyers can be crucial.
Reports from the ground in Lisbon suggest the operational strain is severe, with information indicating that only 20 service tickets are distributed each day to the public waiting for in-person assistance. The institutional failures have been confirmed by the head of the IHRU himself. António Benjamim Costa Pereira, President of the IHRU, acknowledged the failings in recent comments to Lusa following a hearing at the Assembleia da República. He admitted the scenario is “gravíssimo” (very serious), especially concerning the delays affecting nearly 60,000 beneficiaries of the Programa de Apoio Extraordinário à Renda (PAER) who are still awaiting resolution.
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Pereira placed the blame on the design of the support programs rather than on his staff. “The problem is not in the service, the problem is in the program, which was badly designed, badly made, and creates these problems,” he stated, while also confirming the service centers are perpetually overwhelmed. He assured that his teams in both Porto and Lisbon are undertaking a “Herculean effort” to “amenizar” (mitigate) the problem. These ongoing issues are a critical component of the national conversation on housing policy, a topic covered extensively in our Legal Updates News section.
The planned protests signal growing public frustration with the state's ability to effectively implement its own housing support policies, a critical factor for stability in the rental market. For investors, understanding these governmental and political risks is as important as market trends. Our guide to investment risks provides further context on this topic.
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