Minister reacts to latest report, and president’s ‘demand’
Portugal’s Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security has announced a new national strategy will be laid shortly for the integration of homeless people, who have increased in number yet again, according to the latest survey.
Speaking at the opening of a new temporary accommodation centre in Lisbon, Maria Rosário Palma Ramalho said: “I am very pleased to announce that this strategy is already in the legislative circuit, so it will be considered by the Council of Ministers very soon”.
In addition to the new strategy, the minister said the government has also defined a two-year action plan to “reach people more effectively, to strengthen prevention, to improve monitoring and, in the end, to hopefully achieve faster integration”.
This was, in effect, the government’s response to a ‘challenge’ laid down by President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who demanded, in a podcast broadcast yesterday, ‘to know what the government’s strategy is’ for homeless people.
Eradicating homelessness was one of the banners of Marcelo’s early years as president, when he declared that it was his hope that by 2023, the large majority of homeless people “will have the conditions of health, housing and employment to enable them to leave the streets”.
At the time (2018) the national strategy for integrating homeless people had a budget of €60 million and “has 15 objectives, 76 actions and 103 activities, including residential care, health integration and the creation of conditions for training and employment”.
It clearly wasn’t enough, as six years on, the country has seen homelessness increase year-on-year to the point that there are now over 13,000 people living without a roof over their heads.
For minister Palma Ramalho, she does not see the President’s comments as any kind of criticism of this government, particularly as it only took office in April, and immediately started working on the new national strategy.
13,128 homeless people, 2,000 more than in 2022
According to the Survey on the Characterisation of People Experiencing Homelessness, there are 13,128 people living rough in Portugal, most of whom – 4,871 – are in the Lisbon metropolitan area. The North region has 2,700 homeless people, the Alentejo 2,397; followed by the Centre and, lastly, the Algarve.
The survey was answered by 277 municipalities, of which 167 reported situations of homelessness, which corresponds to around 60% of the country’s total.
From 2022 to 2023, the number of homeless people increased by around 2,000. The minister admitted that the previous plan by the Socialist government was unable to respond to this increase.
“It’s true that a national homelessness strategy is still in place, but unfortunately this strategy hasn’t managed to prevent an increase in homelessness, nor has it, in this government’s view, kept pace with this phenomenon of diversification (…) Today we have homeless people who have jobs, which was unusual (in the past). We have entire families and many foreigners, which was also unusual (in the past)”, she said.
The temporary accommodation centre inaugurated in Lisbon today is intended for those types of homeless people – with nowhere to live, but a monthly income and/or for people who have been living on the streets for less than a year because they are financially unable to access the housing market, even though they earn money from work or via a training programme.
Source: Lusa/ Rádio Renascença
