Seven families in the neighborhood of Talude, in Catujal, in the municipality of Loures, this Monday stopped the machines that were going to demolish the tents and are waiting for a definitive housing solution.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the missionary from the parish of Camarate José Manuel explained that seven families were notified that their houses were going to be demolished this Monday, adding that “in fact there are 20 or 30 more tents, only that seven families are who received the demolition order”.
According to the missionary, representatives of the municipality’s social work explained to the inhabitants that “they still didn’t have a solution [de realojamento] definitive, but only provisional”, so “people were scared and sent for a representative of the council”.
Although the machines, the police and representatives of the municipality are there, the demolitions have not yet taken place, given that, according to José Manuel, people “put themselves in front of the machines and did not let them go ahead”.
“Now [cerca das 11h40] are all gathered,” he added.
The Habita association denounced this Monday in a statement released around 11:00 am that seven families were going to be evicted in the Talude neighborhood, Catujal, because the Municipality of Loures was going to demolish their houses.
According to the association, the municipality had not presented “any adequate housing alternative” and will send “several families with children to the streets”.
According to Habita, in question are five households, “with female heads of household who take care of their children alone”, including in the group “a sick pregnant woman” awaiting a vacancy for a heart operation, in addition to “a gentleman elderly and very sick, as well as five minors and two newborns”.
“The majority are unemployed people looking for a job. But there are also formally employed women whose income is not enough to access housing”, says the association’s note.
According to Habita, several organizations are present at the site and oppose “the barbarism of the system that only defends property and profit and throws people into increasingly unsustainable situations of poverty and onto the streets”.
The association also mentions that these families, having failed to find a housing option, “had no choice but to build a tent”.
“This is the country that once again throws people into situations where they have no choice but to build shacks”, can be read in the note, which adds that the families of the Talude neighborhood, “like all people , have access to adequate housing, they are not responsible for living in a tent, but the policies that encourage the inaccessibility of housing”.
“While the government entertains us with the chaotic and haphazard launch of housing measures that fail miserably by not addressing the fundamental problems and causes of the housing crisis, nor creating immediate measures to staunch the crisis, evictions and the housing emergency continue to to make themselves felt, and people are thrown into the streets by the State itself”, denounces Habita.
Lusa tried to obtain a response from the Loures City Council on the matter, but so far it has not been successful, with the municipality sending an explanation for later.