Portugal’s Consultation on the Right to Housing

Together with The Shift, IHRB has submitted a joint response to Portugal’s National Housing Consultation to strengthen housing policy in order to help people realise their right to housing.

The Portuguese government is currently pushing forward with significant housing initiatives. A new housing ministry was formed in January 2023, and a new housing plan called “Mais Habitação” was announced in February 2023.

What is the right to housing?

The right to housing is a fundamental human right. Having a place to call home allows us to satisfy our basic need for shelter and have a space to rest and recover.

The right to housing is an enabling right, meaning that once it is satisfied it enables the individual to access other rights such as education, work, and civic participation.

Without fulfilling the right to housing, the individual is very seldom also able to enjoy their other rights.

Recommendations

IHRB and its partner The Shift have written a submission as part of our research project “Building for today and the future: Advancing a Just Transition in the Built Environment” currently being undertaken in Lisbon by IHRB’s research consultant Diana Soeiro.

Below are some highlight recommendations for Portugal’s new housing plan, which is called Mais Habitação. Read the full recommendations by downloading our submission.

1. Adopt a human-rights centric approach - within the framework of human rights, the “right to housing” language, as well as the strategy, should be in the plan itself.
2. The Progressive Realisation Principle - the plan should be founded and implemented under this principle by, among other things, taking deliberate, concrete and targeted measures; and demonstrating that the maximum of available resources are utilised. This means that the goal of providing all citizens affordable housing is a long-term sustained effort
3. Realistically assess stakeholders' needs and ensure resources are available - identify key stakeholders and create a collaborative intersectoral dialogue platform in order to assess their needs.
4. Consultation and monitoring - every decision made within the scope of the Mais Habitação plan should benefit from the lived expertise of those affected, and communities should be able to give feedback regarding accountability during the implementation of housing plans.
5. Financialisation -  create and implement mechanisms that allow for the close monitoring of investor activity to ensure it complies with human rights, as there are always new forms of financialisation arising.

Read the 30 more specific recommendations tailored to each of the measures outline in the Mais Habitação plan.

The authors of submission are Diana Soeiro, IHRB Built Environment researcher in Lisbon; Alejandra Rivera, IHRB Built Environment Global Programme Manager; and Sam Freeman, The Shift Director of Legal Research & Advocacy.

Additional resources to implement the right to housing:

• IHRB ‘Dignity by Design’ Framework
• IHRB Recommendations to uphold the Right to Housing
• UN Guidelines for the Implementation of the Right to Adequate Housing
• The Shift’s Key principles of a rights-based housing strategy
• The Shift Directives
• UNSR report “Towards a just transformation: climate crisis and the right to housing”
• Barcelona Right to Housing Plan 2016-2025 as a guiding example on framing for (a) the public sector to protect the right to housing and (b) for the private sector to respect it.
• Policy and Planning Toolkit for Urban Green Justice, by Barcelona Laboratory for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ)
  

‘Mais Habitação’ - a new housing plan for Portugal

In 2016, then United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) for the Right to Housing, Leilani Farha and her team, conducted a special mission to Portugal. Their work was essential to gain clarity on the status of the right to housing in the country including the legal framework, national housing policies, and zoom in on specific issues jeopardizing citizens’ access to housing such as evictions, demolitions, and the treatment of informal settlements, the issue of homelessness, and the deficit of social (government provided or sponsored) and affordable housing.

Other important issues that this report brought to light was the phenomenon of “Touristification” and short-term rentals, and golden visas, two things that exacerbate the financialisation and speculation with the Portuguese built environment sector. There were several recommendations made to the government in this report, and many have been taken forward.

The Portuguese government's new housing plan, Mais Habitação, has 5 main objectives:

1. Increase housing supply
2. Simplify licensing procedures
3. Increase the number of houses on the rental market
4. Combat speculation
5. Protect families

The Housing Ministry states that this plan “aims to add solutions and responses to the immediate needs of families, at the same time that it aims to reinforce the housing supply and the resources necessary to guarantee, in fact, housing for all”. The Mais Habitação plan was launched for public consultation in early march open to all citizens, companies or associations with a state in housing matters. 

Housing and the built environment

IHRB’s Built Environment Programme therefore, places great attention onto the right to housing, among several other rights that impact built environments globally (also the right to mental and physical health, construction workers’ rights, equity and non-discrimination, participation, rights in smart cities, etc.). Also in the

In the context of climate action, the ongoing project “Building for today and the future: Advancing a Just Transition in the Built Environment” is researching eight8 case studies globally, to examine various cities’ strategies to reduce emissions from buildings and construction and to strengthen climate (and social) resilience. This includes among other topics, the right to adequate housing, encompassing security of tenure, affordability and habitability. One of the case studies in this project is Lisbon, Portugal, a unique and interesting context in Europe that exemplifies many of the housing ‘dilemmas’ several other cities are experiencing regarding human rights and the built environment, especially the right to housing.