Just Life Movement returns to the streets with emergency plan

The Vida Justa movement returns to the streets this Wednesday, with a demonstration in Lisbon, in defense of a national emergency plan for housing, having already requested "an urgent meeting" with the Government.

The call for a rally at the Council of Ministers headquarters at 7:00 p.m. is “against the destruction of homes, evictions and lies.”

The movement — which will deliver the open letter "Stop evictions and resolve the housing situation" to the government, with more than 3,200 individual signatures and around 150 supporting organizations — demands "real solutions" to the housing crisis.

" The government and local authorities are doing nothing to solve the housing problem due to real estate speculation, excessive tourism, and the lack of public housing construction," the call for proposals states.

Specifically, the movement calls for a response to the “ more than 90 homeless families and more than 60 children living on the streets ” in the neighborhoods of Talude Militar, in the municipality of Loures, and Estrada Militar da Mina de Água, in the municipality of Amadora, where local authorities ordered the demolition of precarious buildings this month.

Vida Justa counts “23 slum neighborhoods in Greater Lisbon” and notes that “there are more and more working families who cannot rent a house or even a room.”

Specifically addressing the municipalities of Loures and Amadora, the movement laments that "the only thing they do is criminalize working-class people and blame them for criminal policies."

Vida Justa also accuses the Government and local authorities of doing nothing to resolve the problem and demands “real solutions” for what it considers to be a “humanitarian catastrophe”, stating that it has already requested “an urgent meeting” with the Secretary of State for Housing and the Board of Directors of the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU).

The municipalities of Loures and Amadora, in the district of Lisbon and both presided over by the PS, carried out demolition operations in mid-July of precarious houses built by residents, generating protests.

On July 14, the Loures municipality began demolishing 64 precarious homes, housing 161 people, in the Talude Militar neighborhood. Fifty-five homes were demolished within two days before a Lisbon court suspended the demolition following a precautionary measure filed by residents.

In Amadora, the municipality demolished eight of the 22 buildings on the demolition list on Estrada Militar da Mina de Água, having also suspended the operation after a precautionary measure filed by residents.

Vida Justa and local organizations have challenged the actions of local authorities, accusing them of evicting people without alternatives and failing to provide them with adequate support.

In response, the mayor of Loures, Ricardo Leão (PS), accused the movement of “harming the people” of Talude, “prohibiting them from speaking” to the municipality’s technicians.

"Vida Justa is manipulating these families," he said, assuring that the municipality has been "talking to everyone" in Talude Militar since March, where the civic movement has been supporting residents, particularly by collecting donations.

Vida Justa accused the mayor of “lying” and trying to “discredit” the voices of residents.