Lack of Homes in Porto Can Be Solved with Municipal Funds, Councilman Says

16 June 2018

This Saturday, Manuel Pizarro, a PS-affiliated councillor at Porto’s city council, proposed the creation of municipal real estate investment funds to facilitate access to housing for the needy and the young.

The councillor from the PS (Socialist Party), Manuel Pizarro, argued for the use of municipal real estate investment funds to solve the problem of access to housing for the city’s needy and youth.

In a debate on “Housing in Porto and Bonfim”, held at the Lomba Residents’ Association, Mr Pizarro stated that he believes alarm bells are going off in Porto regarding the difficulty of access to affordable housing. He added that the way to combat the “historical error” of “stimulating people to buy their own homes” could be solved through “public initiatives.”

“You cannot ask private investment alone to solve a market failure,” the former councillor said, who previously held the Social Housing portfolio in the Porto’s city council. He defended “the use of municipal real estate investment funds to solve the problem of access to housing in the city.”

Explaining his proposal, Manuel Pizarro said that it would involve “stable, long-term funds with 20, 30 or 40-year horizons, depending on the investment.”

Mr Pizarro spoke before an audience that included the former and current presidents of the PS-Porto council, Tiago Barbosa Ribeiro and Renato Sampaio, respectively. The former mayor of Lisbon, João Soares, also participated in the discussions.

Confessing to limited knowledge about “the reality of the islands in Porto”, in which according to a study mentioned at the beginning of the debate number 957, of which 126 are in Bonfim, João Soares spoke, above all, of his experience in Lisbon.

The elimination, while he was mayor of the capital, “of 25,000 tents where 25,000 families lived” in Lisbon, the also former Secretary of State for Culture recalled the social situation in which it occurred, defending “the use of community funds”, as opposed to the councillor’s proposal.

Arguing against any recourse to using municipal real estate investment funds, Mr Soares said that his solution would involve “public money and municipal involvement.”

Manuel Pizarro also spoke of “a new problem in Porto” when he spoke of “unacceptable rental prices” that are “pushing the youth out” of a city, where “between 15% and 16% of people live in public housing.”

Original Story: Jornal Expresso

Translation: Richard Turner