European residents displaced citizens centers for tourists. Could the Crown reverse the trend?

Carla da Cunha was convinced that the Negro Lado or “dark side” would be clear of mass tourism, sooner or later. But he never thought it would happen caused by a tiny, invisible virus so quickly. Da Cunha, 40, is among residents who are “the” resistance of Alfama, the oldest district is called the Portuguese city of Lisbon, where nearly 60% of the apartments are now rented as short-term accommodation. Between 2013 and 2017 Alfama lost 2,000 inhabitants, and now by the local group of the Association of Heritage and the people of Alfama (APPA) – only 2,030 are registered as residents. In addition, it almost had to leave when in 2017, was expelled with her two daughters after being bullied by her landlord, who wanted her apartment for rent to tourists. Her story made national news, and the city has given her an apartment in the same rent-controlled area. Da Cunha was to share their neighborhood with crowds of tourists used, but they disappeared when the novel coronavirus spread throughout Europe. Soon she found almost no neighbors and little in the way of local services. “I live in the desert,” he says. “Buying food I climb 1 km race.” Just opposite the supermarket where DA Cunha shops, an apartment is owned by Carlota Godinho properties, 50. Once in finance in London to work for 20 years, returned to Lisbon, bought two apartments in need of restructuring and earned to live rent them tourists. But their latest guests occurred on March 15, and she has no reservations. He took the plants in their place, so they would not die, he says. “I’m happy because these properties are mine, but I have some friends with a mortgage who are desperate.” Shared experience and da Cunha Godinho-tenant and landlord described hundreds of thousands of people in other European cities, where tourism has come to a standstill in demand for travel and stay at home how to prevent populations. clustered neighborhoods, where Globetrotter are now half empty in the short term and increasingly socially fragile as rental business imploded built in recent decades. Now, the combination of supporters across Europe to try to build support for a more equitable housing policy to use the moment. “The pandemic has created a dynamic movements of the houses in Europe,” said Veda Popovici, moderator of the European Network Coalition for the Right to Housing and the City. Many European cities, Venice and Barcelona to Reykjavik are available, increased uncertainty about the consequences of years of uncontrolled mass tourism and housing. But Lisbon is a city of about 500,000 inhabitants, which normally attracts more than 4 million tourists a year and has 10,000 people in substandard accommodation offers one of the clearest examples of how the global market needs replaced urban policy. Luis Mendes, professor of geography at the University of Lisbon and a leading expert in Portugal, gentrification, says that Lisbon has experienced what “turbogentrification.” He In the early 2010s, such as Portugal dug by the global economic crisis, the government has liberalized the rental market and encouraged foreign capital programs to attract. IB granted “saw gold” so named for foreigners living abroad, but they still need to invest at least € 500,000 in real estate (or EUR 350,000 for houses that need renovation) and significant tax relief for pensioners offered, the purchase made through rent or own “not ordinarily resident.” with the growing popularity of platforms like Airbnb, short term rental of a room or apartment has a popular and easy way to earn some money. have for investors and businesses throughout the building – or block – which created the opportunity to make profitable immediately. Combined with the increase of mass tourism driven by low oil prices and a growing global middle class, such as Mendes change as a “perfect storm for real estate,” the character of what had been a lively residential town created. “He put the policy in response to the 2008 crisis, the city has changed radically in just five years,” he says. Lisbon has been a mecca for tourists: “Best City Break Destination” last year for the third time in a row won the World Travel Award, the Oscar of tourism, for thousands of jobs have been created in bringing the arm and property owners saw the value of their real aims. But many of these jobs were precarious, such as cleaning and check-in staff. to afford the rising cost of real estate has left ordinary residents a place to live, to fight – now, while only the minimum wage € 600. And if all the travel and hospitality industry effectively shut the costs of hiring an average of more than € 550 per month in the second quarter of this year the injustices of this new economy were absolutely obvious. “It ‘a virus took the contradictions of neoliberal policies in Portugal accepted to exhibit,” said Mendes. “How can we not a stable situation of quarantine life? How can we pay the rent or mortgage, if you suddenly lose our job?” In Lisbon claims the right to housing are “working tirelessly, both locally and online,” says Ana Gago, researcher and member of the Lisbon-based Habita group, active for more than a decade. “Extreme Bringing the health crisis brought to light, and, unfortunately, not isolated events like overcrowded houses with a maximum of 6 people per room,” said Gago. These groups have already won concessions for thousands of people in the city to fight, helped pay the rent. Evictions on hold and are the most vulnerable families were payments made it possible to rent one month after the end of the move block, which was May 3, a few days later, raised on May 7, the Portuguese government approved a measure, under which the leases were not expire until the end of September or the first canceled. But activists say that is not enough, because the economic and social crisis is much longer than the health emergency. “We’re just moving the problem,” said Gago. “Housing rights are attached to workers’ rights, and gender discrimination and race. This is why we are joining forces with several organizations.” With their collective strategies and ideas with other groups from all over the world divides to make permanent changes. “Yesterday we in an online meeting with participants from 16 countries took part,” he says. This type of cooperation needs to be done at the base because the EU institutions to deal with any direct authority over housing policy and require each country with the theme alone. But some officials in Brussels think they take us to the current crisis in many major cities contain several measures Europe. “We need incentives for social housing, which would also create jobs in the next recession. But we need more transparency on the body,” says Kim van Sparrentak, a Dutch MEP, the European Parliament ist speaker, dignified and affordable housing for the initiative. “As long as the offshore funds to invest freely in the real estate portfolio of our cities, and the short-term rental market is regulated by online platforms, it is unlikely that anything will change,” Not all of the properties is short-term rented an international investor, of course – and locals and Carlota Godinho, shape renting apartments to tourists a life is now at a crossroads. According Bloomer independent project collected in Portugal recently to collect data on Airbnb to take the market and has seen the face of this difficult period about 11,000 properties listed in Lisbon hosts decisions 150,000 cancellations for a 12-day period in March or € 7, 4 million bookings. In the five weeks that followed 458 ads were withdrawn. If the individual home owners are forced to sell it could aggravate it until actually the housing crisis, investment opportunities with high liquidity to provide additional functionality to shoot. Instead, they are forced to move from short-term homeowners for long-term rental. The Portuguese Association Local accommodation (ALEP) says that the consulting company to its members is, involving a change of direction into account. “Some were thinking before the health crisis, but now, of course, the number has increased,” Eduardo Miranda, ALEP says the president. “We are working with the city on a new program for affordable rent.” The government in Lisbon in March approved a plan to rent thousand apartments from private landlords and sublet to people who need affordable housing. But many owners are cautious to make a permanent change. Godinho says the “rent laws are constantly changing” is worried and think about their homes for a period of two to three months of rent and see, wait and see what happens. owners of private homes who are hoping to wait the crisis “will not solve everything,” says Gago, the activist housing. The window of global reforms can be closed; the market for short-term rentals in Lisbon appears to be stabilizing. Data Bloomer later, reservations remain within the first 14 days level. Carla da Cunha awaits his day in the streets of Alfama past abandoned blinds coffee excursion and trams half-empty will not be long. “Everything was back on the road before the mass tourism on stand by,” he says. “People forget.”
Photo copyright Daniel Rodrigues-The New York Times / Redux