– LUSA.
At Quinta do Ferro, in the heart of Lisbon, the scenario is described by residents as “scary” and “a misery”. In this neighborhood, there are those who live without light and still dump waste on the street as in past centuries.
If there are buildings that look good, others are completely dilapidated, even though they have tenants to live.
The Lusa agency found residents at the site to dump waste into a pit, or even into the street, since their homes do not meet basic sanitation conditions.
“This is a misery. There are people who do not have water, there are many people living with more difficulties. And I am afraid […]. We have a fountain here and people come here to pour everything and anything else” , tells Lusa Lina Silva, 44, who has lived in Quinta do Ferro for eight years.
Residents feel abandoned and forgotten, despite being in the parish of São Vicente, a central area located near Bairro da Graça and Santa Apolónia.
“The camera does not remember that this exists. We are in the middle of a city. What is sadder is that we are in the middle of the city of Lisbon and there is no way to have a solution”, laments Lina.
The scenario portrayed by Uriana Andrade Silveira, 38, is similar.
The resident claims to have minimal hygiene conditions inside the house, but points out that Quinta do Ferro “is a neighborhood that has no conditions”.
“There are cockroaches here on the street, there are many animals here and they show up at home. It is very complicated to be here with children and everything”, he reports.
Paula Vilasboas, 46, faces a plague of bedbugs at home due to humidity, which forces her to spend the night outside her home.
“At the moment I am sleeping in my van because my children are in their room and I will not be asking my children to sleep there. So I came to my van, at the door,” she says, flanked by her husband.
Rosa Gomes, from the Associação Amigos da Quinta do Ferro, which brings together owners and residents, underlines that the “main difficulties” felt in the neighborhood are related to the lack of jobs and “decent housing”.
“I don’t like to see people living here without bathrooms, without water, without any hygiene. This is scary for me in the 21st century”, he says.
Rosa Gomes’ desire is to see the area “as it should be”, with an approved requalification project that is beneficial to owners and residents.
Tiago Mota Saraiva, from the cooperative “Work with the 99%”, explains to Lusa that about five years ago, together with residents and owners, the process of building a Quinta do Ferro rehabilitation project started.
The project, he explains, was handed over to the city council in 2017, and then “stopped when it started to reach the [Urbanism] service” of the municipality. After three years, “very little is known about what the future may be”.
“In these processes, we must respond quickly. Public institutions must realize that there is synergy here, that there is an interesting desire for a common process here and that there is a new form of city production”, he defends.
Asked by the Lusa agency, City Councilor Ricardo Veludo (Citizens for Lisbon, elected by the PS), says that in 2019 the municipality transmitted to the project promoters its disagreement with some points, requesting the improvement of these aspects, something that ended up not happen.
For this reason, the Urban Planning services have developed a global intervention project, for the whole neighborhood, which is in a “final phase” and which the councilman hopes to be able to present to residents and owners later this year, “to try to adequately solve the problems that exist there “.
According to the mayor, the cooperative’s project maintained “the poorest area” of Quinta do Ferro, transforming “only a part of the neighborhood”.
“I cannot agree that the project does not include the entire territory. It must cover the entire territory of Quinta do Ferro and must qualify it”, he considers.
“And all owners have to be treated equally in terms of building rights, but also in terms of sharing costs,” he adds.
The councilor for Urbanism also mentions that the promoters proposed the construction of housing on a “very steep terrain and without adequate conditions”.
“I think it is important that we work to have a solution that allows not only to qualify the entire neighborhood urbanistically, but also to find a fair solution for all who live there. And that has to be done with the involvement and participation of the owners. Because they are the landlords, it is not the council “, concludes Ricardo Veludo.
The solution is slow to arrive for residents who aspire to live in houses with decent conditions, in an area of Lisbon that they consider to be “a beautiful place to live”.
Photo: Tiago Petinga / Lusa
