Access to social housing in Lisbon Metropolitan Area: Recent housing programmes within the scope of housing policies and basic laws

Abstract

This paper delves into the issue of recent access to social housing in Portugal, given the escalating challenges in securing adequate housing. The unprecedented public investment within housing raises important considerations. It leads us to question the effectiveness of current housing policies and basic laws in guaranteeing adequate housing and exploring if there an urban attempt to relate the house to the habitat in recent developments on social housing. To address these initial inquiries, we focuses on three specific aspects within the realm of recent social housing programmes: i) housing policies; ii) basic laws; and iii) preliminary programmes for design contests and specifications for rehabilitation contracts. The methodology involves selecting case studies of housing estates in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, while analysing parameters such: i) location; ii) intervention type iii) number of dwellings and their typologies; iv) dimension of the housing gross construction; and v) relation between the house and the habitat. Preliminary findings underscore advancements in social housing, emphasizing the importance and need not only for the articulation between current housing programmes, policies and basic laws, in order to guarantee adequate housing and habitat, but also the irreplaceable role of the State and the Central Government to define these policies and approach municipalities to execute them.