PCP is alive<_o3a_p>
I believe that not even in times of “contraption” did the extreme left have the courage to present a measure as invasive as the appropriation of citizens’ assets by the State, in this case, vacant houses, that is, any dwelling that has not been inhabited for a year.
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Currently, any moderate citizen is rightly afraid of the growth of the extreme right, forgetting that the extreme left can be equally aggressive and limiting freedoms. And looking only at one side, we let the other side reach the government and leave the seed there, and thus we are left with the most left-wing PS in history. Jerónimo de Sousa can rest assured that the PCP is alive, the testimony was well delivered, not to Paulo Raimundo, but to António Costa.
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Joao Ribeiro, Carregado
Housing
In the midst of the screaming that dominates the public discussion of Housing, there are semantic oddities that, silently, say a lot. One of the most frequent (still this weekend, in PÚBLICO) designates a subclass of the human species as “the private ones”. This intriguing category deserves reflection. I’ve never met anyone who told me “I’m a private person”… In what alternative category would the irascible users of this word place themselves? Is it “the publics”? Perhaps by “private” is meant those who are, by the State, the fruit of their work and the enjoyment of their goods? And perhaps by “public” is meant those who, in plain sight, exercise the powers of that State? As it is public, they are recruited among the best of the best, through very tight scrutiny like the eye of a certain needle through which a rich person would not pass, unlike other mammals. At the opposite ends of the wheel of fortune are those who are neither private nor public, those who, having nothing, are merely omni-impotent and omnidependent. On them, the Public Man benevolently bestows the material contribution of a few crumbs and the moral contribution of the laws with which he lashes out and punishes the “private”, transgressors, scoundrels and bad guys.
Bernardo Barahona Correa, Lisbon
don’t measure them
The “More housing” program recently presented is vast, but there is one point that I think is important to highlight because of what is significant about the mistaken way in which this Government imagines solutions. This is the recovery of vacant properties assumed by the State. First of all, it would be a good sign for him to set an example and recover his own, before sticking his scythe in someone else’s fields.
Anyone who has ever needed to renovate or modernize their own property knows how long, unpredictable and variable in terms of time and costs the process can be. The possible options for materials and equipment, the coordination of the various works and the (lack of) reliability of many contractors and installers can make the process a difficult nightmare to control.
To imagine that the State, which at the moment cannot even complete a food basket to distribute to those in need, can carry out these interventions in someone else’s home with a minimum of efficiency and dimension is atrociously unrealistic. This tic of the State replacing itself with the appropriate actors and voluntarily assuming everything and anything else is an attitude that does not solve anything in the long term and, on the contrary, does not give confidence to those who need it. Who really knows and can invest.
Carlos JF Sampaio, Esposende
leasing coercively
The State, through any government, arrogates to itself the right to rent a property, an apartment or a roof to a private individual who does not want to do so, goes beyond what is legally admissible.
The country’s fundamental law, the Constitution, advocates that every citizen has the right to have housing, but not at the expense of another citizen. The duty lies with the State, which should have been implanted a long time ago. If the prime minister, António Costa, is obstinate in what he wants to do with other people’s property, that’s his problem. Or else, that he have the thousands of abandoned buildings repaired and then put them at the disposal of those fellow citizens who need them.
Meanwhile, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, on the subject, was like ‘the fool in the middle of the bridge’, as well as the aphorisms ‘be in half red’, or ‘no yes, no soup’ to go to the meeting of his saying “you only know that a melon is good after you start it”, ‘shutting it up’.
Jose Amaral, Vila Nova de Gaia
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