Left Bloc laments “social pandemic” in housing as Portugal’s cities “turned into Disneylands”

The leader of Portugal’s Left Bloc (BE), which in the previous two parliaments formed part of the support base for the Socialist government, has decried the housing crisis in the country as a “social pandemic” caused by the virus of “usurious rent and easy profit” that has seen the country’s main cities turned “into Disneylands” through the effects of mass tourism. Mariana Mortágua, the BE national coordinator was speaking at the closing session of the Socialism Forum – the party’s end-of-summer event in Viseu on Sunday to mark the political ‘rentrée’ – at which she pledged to make housing a central plank of the BE’s programme.