The Socialist Party (PS) will commence sectoral sessions this Wednesday to update its electoral program. Today’s agenda includes discussions on health and housing, the latter of which Secretary-General Pedro Nuno Santos identified as an area where significant shortcomings have persisted even during the democratic era.
“We still face a situation of housing indignity. Many families live in conditions that pose severe problems in terms of sanitation, security, health, and overcrowding, which must be addressed. This problem needs solving, but there are challenges beyond the dignified lives of families accessing housing,” he stated in Lisbon. He highlighted that the difficulties in accessing housing impede the “emancipation of Portuguese youth.”
“These issues affect various levels, particularly impacting the ability to form families and, specifically, to have children, influencing our society as a whole,” he elaborated. He also highlighted the ‘opposite’ problem, referring to the difficulties faced by individuals when couples separate, in terms of “each member finding their own home.”
The Socialist leader addressed the challenge of attracting skilled workers to Portugal, citing housing prices as “incompatible with the wages that our companies can offer.” He mentioned public service employment, such as teaching, and the movement of young people studying away from their hometowns. “Adding to this is the pressure from major urban centers, which also fosters xenophobic rhetoric from some populist forces in Portugal,” he noted.
Noting that previous socialist governments launched the largest public housing construction program in recent decades, he said, “It is underway, although unfortunately insufficient and too slow. But that process has begun. Had it started earlier, we would be in a less severe situation today.”
Discussing public housing and the housing stock, he commented, “After the April 25 Revolution, we did not regard housing with the same importance as education, health, and the pension system. We are now heavily paying for these consequences.”
Pedro Nuno Santos insisted that it is evident more houses are needed on the market. He asserted that achieving this requires regulation and mobilization of “the numerous vacant properties in the country, particularly in major cities,” acknowledging that this will not be an “easy task.”
