Search

UID/SOC/04647/2013 This article discusses segregation regimes in relation to housing policies, analysing their effects on residential occupation patterns and their connections with other urban policies in the Portuguese context. First, we focus on the effect of national housing policies from the past two decades, including social housing policies, on residential occupation patterns. Second, we examine the main instruments of housing policy implemented under the austerity programme, looking ahead to the new needs and segregation mechanisms linked to the crisis as well as the responses to the crisis. We show that during the past four decades, housing policies ended up acting as segregation regimes, unable to oppose centrifugal market forces present in the metropolisation process. In central metropolitan areas, as well as in neighbourhoods with social housing, the economic crisis and the austerity programme are magnifying problems regarding access to housing. The adopted policies have direct consequences on spatial segregation, as they contribute to the increase of housing stress in low-income dwellings. authorsversion published

The article starts by discussing the changes in the way of viewing social housing, emphasizing the importance of the “urban deprived areas” in contemporaneous urban politics. Secondly, considering statistical data, the article describes the social housing stock of Lisbon Metropolitan Area municipalities, regarding its spatial distribution and most recent evolution as well as the investment structure, focusing the analysis on the alienation of social housing stock. Additionally, the result of a survey applied to three metropolitan municipalities enables a deeper understanding of the nature of the alienation management strategy as a space- and time-discontinuous phenomenon. Thirdly it develops a critical reflection about the most recent transformations of the municipal management of the “urban deprived areas” of municipal social housing in the context of Lisbon Metropolitan Area, claiming that there are two autonomous models of intervention: one centered in the “long-distance supervising” and another one, in the opposite direction, engaged in social and urban regeneration which increases the penetration of institutional state structures in specific contexts, through “Local Project Teams”., A intervenção do Estado Social português foi insuficiente para corrigiras desigualdades de acesso à habitação e assegurar a sua disponibilização aos grupos mais desfavorecidos. No presente, na sequência do Programa de Assistência Financeira e da conjuntura recessiva instalada, está a ocorrer uma agudização das carências habitacionais, a par do acréscimo de dificuldades para a gestão da habitação social. O artigo desenvolve uma reflexão crítica em torno das transformações mais recentes da política de habitação, analisadas nas suas relações com: 1) o modelo de Estado Social adotado desde o 25 de abril e que hoje se reorienta no sentido do “capitalismo de bem-estar”; 2) as mudanças nas práticas da multiplicidade de organizações estatais (e suas extensões) envolvidas na implementação da política de Habitação Social e 3) os processos de gestão do parque público de habitação levados a cabo por autarquias da metrópole, olhadas no quadro das orientações do modelo social europeu. A análise do conjunto de dados de recolha direta e indireta sobre os processos de intervenção nos bairros sociais e de gestão do parque público de habitação municipal da área metropolitana de Lisboa permite enriquecer a reflexão crítica e sustentar pistas para repensar e intervir sobre a habitação social em Portugal.