The Setúbal City Council is today relocating the last 12 residents of Quinta da Parvoíce, before the demolition of the last shantytown in the city, the municipality revealed.
“We are finally ending the last shantytown in Setúbal and the unworthy situation that was that neighborhood,” Carlos Rabaçal, councilor for Housing of the municipality of Sadino, told Lusa.
According to the mayor, the process of relocating the 72 families who lived in Quinta da Parvoíce “took a little longer” than the municipality was expecting, due to “the absence of housing in the rental market in Setúbal”.
“It was a very long and difficult process to obtain the houses with the appropriate typologies”, added Carlos Rabaçal, recalling that the 72 families are already in the new temporary housing.
Also according to the mayor of the CDU majority in the Chamber of Setúbal, it was only necessary to find a solution for 12 residents of Quinta da Parvoíce – all men who lived alone – but who today will finally be rehoused in the Setubalense Residential pension.
Preparing to live in the pension for the next few days, Kuka Manuel, 49, was a very busy man this morning, gathering some of the possessions he intends to take to the new ‘residence’.
“I am 49 years old, I have been in Portugal for 35 years and in this neighborhood for 21 years. The relocation process has been complicated. Some residents already have a house, but I’ve been here for 21 years and I’ve never been given a house. And now we’re going to a pension, I don’t know for how long,” Kuka Manuel told Lusa news agency.
However, according to the Councillor for Housing at the Setúbal City Council, the placement of the last residents of Quinta da Parvoíce in a pension was the only possible solution at the moment, given the need to demolish the neighborhood and start work for the construction of 200 new homes in that space.
“We will soon demolish all the shack structures of Quinta da Parvoíce, which have not already been demolished because there is an asbestos problem in many of the roofs, which implies the intervention of a specialized company”, he justified.
Next, the topographic subdivisions of the area will be made to make the projects for the construction of about 200 houses, about half of income supported by the municipality of Setúbal and another half of affordable income, by the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU).
Carlos Rabaçal also said that all the people who lived in Quinta da Parvoíce and who have already been temporarily relocated under the Gateway Program in houses with rents at market prices, which are paid by the municipality of Sadino, should occupy part of the new supported income housing that will be built in Quinta da Parvoíce and Bela Vista.
Also according to Carlos Rabaçal, in addition to the 200 houses that should be built in Quinta da Parvoíce, the Setúbal City Council plans to build another 500 supported income houses in Bela Vista, and the IHRU should build another 900 affordable income houses in Bela Vista.