The District Coordinating Committee of the Left Block in the Algarve today expressed its "great solidarity with the struggle and the spirit of unity of the residents" of Bairro Encosta do Sol, on Salema beach, in Budens (Vila do Bispo).
"The situation is extremely worrying for these 40 people and we are here to affirm with determination our solidarity with all those who at the beginning of next week have to forcibly leave their homes", said João Vasconcelos, who yesterday went to the social district to find out , of the situation that the residents are going through.
The Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU), culminating a court decision, notified 15 families that, on July 9 and 10, next week, they will leave the homes where they have lived for two decades.
However, the mayor of Vila do Bispo has already promised that the municipality “will try” to relocate the neediest families in this social district. Adelino Soares added that the municipality is doing “everything to support and relocate families with the least resources and the most needy”, together with Social Security.
The district of 68 social housing houses was built in 1998 by the housing cooperative, on land ceded by the Vila do Bispo Council, and the work was financed by the then Housing Development Fund.
Initially, the houses were intended to be leased at controlled costs to the cooperators for a period of 25 years, with a final purchase option. However, the management of the cooperative changed its mind and wanted to promote only the sale of houses, which led to a dispute that culminated in the occupation of the houses.
José Fernandes, one of the residents notified to leave the house, admits that he knows "that we were illegal", but stresses that the residents always tried to "resolve the situation with the INH and then with the IHRU, but we were never given any option".
Yesterday, the PCP of Vila do Bispo had already expressed solidarity with the residents of the Encosta do Sol social district, announcing that it will question the Government about the measures it will take to prevent the eviction of residents.
Also yesterday, the Left Block went to the neighborhood to talk to the residents. “We want justice to be done to them”, said the Blocist leader João Vasconcelos, stating that “these people have lived in these houses for over 20 years and are alien to the situation that has now culminated in this coercive eviction. Residents of this neighborhood have always expressed willingness to pay the installment to which they were subject, within the scope of the cooperative”.
The Algarvian blocists claim not to understand the “lack of sensitivity and intransigence in the eviction” on the part of the IHRU, the current owner of the properties.
“We see the culmination, in the worst way, of a long process, which began in a social and financial context different from the one we are living in now. The State cannot evict these 40 people without making an assessment of the current situation in which they live”, concluded Vasconcelos.
However, Cecília Honório, the BE deputy elected by the Algarve, questioned the Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning, on why “the INH or the IHRU never reached an agreement with these families ” and how “it will act to ensure that these 40 people, soon evicted, are not left without housing support”.
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