The Basic Housing Law emphasizes the “social function” of housing, with the explicit goals of eradicating homelessness, prioritizing the use of public real estate for affordable housing, and prohibiting tenant evictions across Lisbon—a pressing issue in recent years—unless the state is able to provide similar accommodation nearby. Framers of the law describe it as a foundation and roadmap for future policies, albeit one with some explicitly defined targets, rather than a direct instrument for giving people homes.
The law stipulates that the government will need to present a first-ever national policy for housing to the parliament by March 2020, including special protective measures for young people, the disabled, the elderly, and families with young children.
It also creates a mechanism whereby not only individuals but entire neighborhoods will be able to lodge complaints about housing quality, ongoing construction, or proposed developments, in an attempt to democratize a sector that has seen soaring rent increases amid the tourism boom in Lisbon’s city center. [...]
Although there is not more recent data, according to the 2011 census there were there were 50,289 vacant homes in Lisbon’s inner city, out of a total of 322,865 housing units, according to Mendes. (Many homes in the capital were abandoned as the population shrank in the late 20th century.) Meanwhile, the ongoing demolition of illegal or informal settlements—there are an estimated 14,000 families living in “precarious conditions” in the Lisbon metropolitan area—penalizes the poor who lack sufficient protections and has stoked racial tensions in districts such as Barrio de Jamaica.
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