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This Monday, the mayor of Almada, CM, Inês de Medeiros (PS), said that she would not mind going to live in Bairro Amarelo, also known as Bairro do PicaPau Amarelo, already “tomorrow”.
The mayor intervened in the ordinary public session of the Almada Chamber, in which the “simplified alteration of the National Ecological Reserve in Porto Brandão” (Trafaria, Caparica), in the Lazareto area, was approved. “Almada has the privilege of having social neighborhoods in absolutely wonderful spaces, with an enviable view. Any social neighborhood on the north bank is jealous. I myself would live in the Yellow District tomorrow, ”he said.
Still on Monday, the president of the Almada CM said that her statements about Bairro Amarelo, in Monte da Caparica, which began to be shown in 1970 and ended 17 years later, were decontextualized due to the “next elections.” and that “the question of the location of some of the social neighborhoods of Almada arises in response to the direct interpretation made by BE”, which said: “we long for projects aimed at people and that are also in beautiful places, that are not ghettos ”. .
“I am very aware that, as the municipal elections approach, the temptation to systematically decontextualize statements that are answers to specific questions or questions is great, and from there draw conclusions that in no way correspond to the initial meaning of the words” , said Inês de Medeiros (PS), in a post made on her Facebook page.
The president also guaranteed that “nothing that was discussed minimizes the concern” of the Almada Chamber for the “social situation that exists in some of these neighborhoods”, where there are precarious housing.
In SIC Notícias, the mayor highlighted that the statements were taken out of context and criticized the left: “It seems very strange to me that people who say they are from the left think that there cannot be people like me or you. [o jornalista] live next to social housing because they have a concept of social housing that must always be miserable and isolated, “said the president-elect by the Socialist Party.
What do the neighbors say?
Resident Maria Madalena Furtado does not deny SIC Notícias that she has a beautiful view from her apartment – “I see all of Lisbon”, but when it comes to conditions, she says that “everything is old.” “It’s just a pittance,” she says, adding that no work can be done.
Teresa Coelho, president of the Unión de Parroquias de Caparica and Trafaria, spoke with the same channel and stated that “nobody lives by sight alone” and that the fundamental thing is “quality of life”: “These houses mainly need maintenance. that Social housing is built with the worst that exists – adding that it is not the people who live in the neighborhood who damage the houses.
Bairro Amarelo is more than 30 years old and houses more than 13 thousand people in 1,058 departments, several of the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU), an institution to which rents are paid. Teresa Coelho also said that the IHRU taxes residents for their view of the houses, “located in a good location.”
The couple, Rafaela and João, who moved to a T2 in the extreme north of Bairro Amarelo a fortnight ago, spoke with the newspaper Observador about the view over the Tagus: “And at night it is even more beautiful, even in the sea you can see those illuminations ”, explains Rafaela. You can see the Cristo-Rei and the 25 de Abril Bridge on the right. On the other side, the riverside area of Belém, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos. They have an income of 200 euros a month and from the short time they live in the area they manage to say that “the neighborhood is good.”
The former neighbor of Bairro Luís Lopes laughs at the statements of Inês de Medeiros and invites the president to visit the neighborhood and says that the mayor could not live long in one of the houses, since there are many disturbances, from people to Hacen noise at night until the police arrive in the neighborhood. Luís also guarantees another fact: not all houses have a privileged view.
Inês de Medeiros, president of the Almada CM, says that “there are no places to live in the poor and places to live in the rich” and does not consider that her statements were disrespectful to the neighbors of the neighborhood, “quite the contrary.” The president also says that the neighbors “have love for the neighborhood, they care about the neighborhood and civic and citizen participation.”
“This story sucks, this lady doesn’t understand this, she’s not from here, she never came here. She has done nothing, not even for the young. This speech has no where to pick it up, “resident Ricardo Melo told the Observer, at the entrance of the seven-story building, which has four apartments per floor and whose elevator broke down” months ago. ” On the conditions, she adds: “The Internet networks are terrible, because there are streams, and the houses are destroyed, they have not had any intervention for years.” The resident says the windows were to be fixed in March, but it was not completed due to Covid-19.
What is not lacking in the area where he lives, he says, is respect among the neighbors, but also fear, since if there is a problem with a neighbor who is making noise, the police are called and everything will be resolved soon. “[S]And call someone GNR, he shows up four hours later and armed to the teeth, as if this were a slum. The neighbors here respect each other, I don’t know if my downstairs neighbor doesn’t have a shotgun at home. I won’t make any noise ”.
The place that he says is more problematic is beyond the school, more in the middle of the neighborhood. The neighbor Pedro agrees: it is “there in the middle of the neighborhood that there are discussions, blows.” Apart from that, he assures the Observer that he does not find any problem in the social district.
Bairro Amarelo is equipped with a basic school, cafes, grocery stores, hairdressers, a ring for children to play soccer, and a bus to the center of Almada. According to IHRU, which manages the neighborhood, there are 68 stores in the neighborhood, most of them in the central area, on Rua do Moinho.
Defense and non-recovery positions
Speaking to Lusa, PSD councilor Nuno Matias, responsible for Green Spaces, Environment and Energy, also agreed that it is a “statement out of context in a set of statements made at a chamber meeting.”
Nuno Matias, who is also president of the PSD of Almada, stressed that, for the party, the most important thing is “the living conditions of these people,” and added that “the view is not important because it cannot be re-qualified, it is the work that must be done either on the side of the central administration or the council, so that the neighborhoods have a real re-qualification plan that can give more dignity to the lives of these people ”, he emphasized.
The communist councilor Joaquim Judas, on the other hand, told Lusa that it was a statement “without considering exactly what interpretations.”
“The mayor is known for her sometimes vague statements, which mix a certain populism with some authoritarian attitudes that also characterize her. She is in the same line as a few years ago, saying that living in Campo de Ourique she always came to the Câmara de Almada de Cacilheiro, but, as experience has shown, it had neither head nor tail ”, she commented.
In that sense, he indicated that the PCP “did not value” this statement, inserting it “in the style and manner of being of the president.”
“At this moment, our desire and what we have been working on, even in the opposition, is to maintain a strong intervention in the housing area, responding to the needs of the people and taking advantage of what the new framework is,” he said.
