Poverty and Progress in Portugal
By Milana McLead

I want a better life for my family,” says João Mouta. It is the simple desire of a father—a father whose three children must share a bed for lack of space, a father who can’t sleep for fear of his house caving in on his family.

João Mouta has lived a lifetime in precarious housing in Braga, Portugal.  By the end of his year, his family and 11 other families will live in sturdy, affordable Habitat houses.

But achieving a better life and acquiring decent shelter is a challenge for thousands of families like the Moutas in Portugal. Official estimates of substandard housing in this country reached 100,000 in 1995, but those counts did not include the plethora of squatter housing or illegal and temporary “barracas”—shacks constructed out of “found” materials and scraps, with no running water or electricity.

Overcrowded conditions also plague many of Portugal’s poor. Among them, Gaspar Alves Gomes’ family of three shares his mother’s decrepit house along with his brother José’s family of five, and his four unmarried brothers.

While José’s family lives in a temporary shelter built behind the main house, the remaining eight extended family members share the tiny house and its single bathroom. The roof over the exterior walkway to the bathroom, too low to allow an average-sized man to stand upright, is made of deteriorating asbestos cement tile. The rooms in the house are cramped and perpetually damp and mildewed.

Braga, Portugal’s religious capital and third largest city, is home to the Mouta and Gomes families. It is estimated to have more than 16 percent of its population living in poverty. Just as elsewhere in Portugal, its poverty is “hidden”—woven amid the winding streets of towns and villages.

Nevertheless, the need is there: real, relentless and ruthless.

The country is among the newest—and poorest—members of the European Union, and is experiencing strong economic growth, falling interest rates and low unemployment. Even so, its democracy is but 25 years old, and the social system that has developed post-revolution has been challenged to keep pace with accelerated growth and change—thus wages and affordable housing have yet to catch up.

Rosa Coelho praises God that she no longer must live in the shack beyond the window of her Habitat house near Braga, Portugal.

“Wages here are only a little better than those in Eastern Europe, but with Western European pricing and a society in transition, it’s a combination that puts decent housing out of reach,” says Doug Dahlgren, HFH Braga’s construction consultant. “The European Union is pumping money into Portugal to help bring it up to standards, but wages have not increased while prices have—tremendously.”

As a result, high-priced real estate and low incomes conspire against many Portuguese—especially the poor—and rental properties here are scarce.

In fact, while half of the houses built 25 years ago were allocated for rental, today less than 2 percent of new houses are designated for rent. For those that are available, the poorest families in Portugal are paying 36 percent of their income for rent, according to the government’s housing department.

Enter Habitat for Humanity. Efforts began three years ago to establish Habitat within Portugal. HFH Braga has struggled since then to build two houses. It faced three key obstacles: a lack of resources, no awareness about Habitat and little interest in volunteerism.

“We strongly need something like Habitat here in Portugal,” says Silas Pego, Ph.D., and chairman of the HFH Braga board. “As a society, we are not accustomed to working together; everyone is independent from one another. We need to learn to work together.”

To enhance that sense of volunteerism, the local organization mounted an ambitious special project this year: to build three, four-unit buildings; utilize local structural construction methods (concrete beams, columns and floors); accelerate the construction with local and international volunteer labor; construct the houses at half their eventual appraised value; and complete them in a few short months.

To be sure, there was skepticism. “People around here started saying that it wasn’t going to happen, that it was probably bad business,” Gomes says. “They doubted it, but we didn’t.”

Today, his Habitat house—and 11 others—is nearly complete at a site in a parish near Braga that lies adjacent to a local schoolyard. As children played in the distance, volunteers from around the world and homeowners have worked together since May to bring this project to reality.

Upon completion, house costs will range from $24,000 to $31,000, depending on size. The mortgages will likely range from $80-$105 monthly for 25 years—affordable to homeowners whose minimum-wage monthly incomes are about $300.

João Mouta has worked faithfully to build his new house. “The family that lives in this house will never be rained on when they are sleeping in their bed,” he said as he laid the first roof tile on the first building. “These are good houses.”


Milana McLead is editor of Habitat World.





Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, October/November 2000.
This article may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
©2000 Habitat for Humanity International