The Housing and Urban Rehabilitation Institute (IHRU) recognizes that it is unable to respond to the more than 50 thousand beneficiaries of the Extraordinary Income Support Program (PAER) with the situation unresolved.
Speaking to Lusa, at the end of a hearing at the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees of the Assembly of the Republic, the president of the IHRU admitted the “very serious” scenario that has been denounced by movements in defense of housing.
“People started receiving without knowing how and they also stopped receiving without knowing why“, summarized António Benjamim Costa Pereira.
Movements such as Porta a Porta have criticized the IHRU’s lack of response, speaking of delays of “more than a year”, which leave “several families across the country in despair”.
Speaking to Lusa, André Escoval, spokesperson for Porta a Porta, considers the “situation very serious”, noting that the IHRU “has had a brutal inability to respond to the various programs”.
According to reports, the communication channels with the IHRU (telephone and internet) “are inaccessible” and only going directly to the service centers – existing only in Lisbon and Porto – can solve a problem that is national.
“Even in Lisbon there is only one technical assistant providing service, with around 20 services per day, for hundreds and hundreds of people who gather daily at the door of this public service.“, describes Escoval, demanding that the IHRU and the Government reinforce the response and allocate the necessary resources.
“We are trying to alleviate this with a lot of effort, with herculean work on the part of our services, both in Porto and in Lisbon”responds Costa Pereira, recognizing that “people often [estão] upset and rightly so” and “the complaints books follow one another”.
For the “very serious problem”, Costa Pereira blames the PAER itself, in which the beneficiary is generated automatically, depending on the defined criteria.
“But then, if there is any inconsistency, he is left without receiving payment, payment is suspended and he has to come and clarify this inconsistency”, he explained, detailing that, of the 129 thousand existing beneficiaries at the moment, “50 or so thousand” are in this situation.
Now, “this brings a lot of people to IHRU”, which has only two service locations, in Lisbon and Porto.
“We always have full service, it’s a fact”, he stated, adding that the institute is “trying to improve”, creating other mechanisms to reach people.
“The problem is not in the service, the problem is in the program, which was poorly designed, poorly executed and creates these problems”, highlights the president of the IHRU.
“There was supposed to be interoperability of systems and this would be a wonderful world. The problem is that there isn’t. The data arrives late and we are unable to comply with people and then we have all these problems”find.
This is, therefore, a basic problem of a program, which “is not even the responsibility of the IHRU”, he pointed out, reporting that the Government “is perfectly aware of this” and “is working on changing” the program, of which “one of these days a new version will come out”.
André Escoval agrees that PAER is a “poorly formulated program, adding that Porta a Porta admits carrying out public initiatives to denounce the situation, particularly near IHRU facilities.