An old university from the 16th century,
precious buildings, old traditions… This is one of the first impressions one
can have of Coimbra. Students in Harry Potter like cloaks, the Estudantinas
singing traditional songs…
And yet, there is something bizarre when one
arrives in Coimbra, as visible as all this harmonic image: next to the old and
precious buildings, entire streets with broken windows, destroyed walls, locked
doors and abandoned cats climbing out of some fissures: vacant, deserted
houses.
And indeed, this little town with its barely
143.000 inhabitants counts 11.740 abandoned houses, according to the latest information
of the Câmara Municipal Coimbra, based upon statistics from 2011. Since then,
the situation has probably become worse, with the growing problems of the
crisis.
But where do all these people live who had indwelt
these houses once before? There are no homeless people on Coimbra’s streets, no
beggars, no visible poverty. The only observable things are the ruins of a once
flourishing society. What happened?
Of course, there is the Portuguese’s quality of
life, a lack of employment and wealth, not enough money to pay the rent – obviously,
this problem has gone worse with the crisis. But the crisis only made come out
a problem that had existed before, explains Francisco Queirós, councilor of
Coimbra and specialized in this matter.
In fact, the city center is not attractive
anymore for most of Coimbra’s inhabitants, since the buildings there have not been
renovated for a long time and do not correspond to the people’s demand anymore.
The great majority of the apartments have extremely bad isolation and no
heating. During the winter months, there is a lot of humidity inside, and the cold
is a constant problem. The bad isolation also will let you hear every little
noise from the street, also during nighttime. In some houses in the Baixa of
Coimbra, “the bathrooms are not condign to the 21st century”, says
Queirós. Under these conditions, the population migrates to the city’s suburbs.
Obviously, one prefers a recently built house to one that is already 60 or 70
years old. But why are the old houses kept in such a bad estate?
“In some cases there are very rich people who
own 10, 20 or even 30 houses here in Coimbra, especially in the Baixa or in the
historical center, and they just leave their houses there, and the Câmara can’t
make the renovations, because they are owned by someone else.”
The IMI (Imposto municipal imovéis: a municipal
tax that every owner pays for his house/s) has to be paid as far as triply, if
a house is empty for over a year. However, corruption or cheating hinder this law
to be applied as it should.
In contrast, poor house owners who have interest
in renovating their house in order to rent it, don’t have the means to do
so. “But there are also a lot of people who
inherited houses from their grand-parents for example, and who don’t have money”,
explains Queirós: “If someone constructed a house, a hundred years ago, the
heirs are the children, then the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren, which
means that a house is owned by twenty or thirty heirs and this is very
difficult: who will take care of the house, if it has so many owners?”
Another aspect that Queirós points out, are the
big commercial shopping centers, such as Continente or Forum: “This almost killed
the traditional commerce”, he says. Indeed, a lot of little stores, especially
in the Baixa, had to close for people preferred big supermarkets and went to
live next to them, in Coimbra’s periphery. This ends up in a vicious circle. The
centre is less animated, and gets hence even more unattractive, which doesn’t
give a chance to the little shops to survive.
So much for the structural problems in general.
But the crisis does make a difference to it. Francisco Queirós calls it the “new
poverty”. Meanwhile the traditional poverty continues existing, there are now
new parts of the society who get poor: individuals who have a very high
academic degree, who have a PhD for example, and who remain unemployed and
poor. Elderly people get less retirement pension and lose their belongings,
young people can hardly pay their studies and will have enormous difficulties to
once earn their own money. It has become a frequent situation that two or three
generations live under the same roof, because they cannot pay the rents
anymore. Nine or ten persons living in a flat with barely two rooms.
The new poverty is a hidden poverty: the
affected ones feel ashamed and would not dare to show their neediness. For
politicians, this is rather convenient. They do know about this situation – it
concerns the whole country, in fact, and not only Coimbra – but hidden as it
is, there is no direct urge to do something about it. Meanwhile, the European
Union keeps on prescribing austerity.
Francisco Queirós has a big folder on his desk.
It contains requests for dwelling from about 500 families in Coimbra. They are
not homeless yet, but living in the described situation, or in completely
degraded houses, or else, paying their rents making debts. “The big majority of
these people are families with single parents, that is to say, for example, a woman,
35-40 years old, with two children. This is the most frequent case.” Francisco
Queirós has a concerned look talking about this folder. “We these 500 requests
for a home, to whom we cannot give an answer”, he says. Various programs for
rehabilitation of abandoned houses have been cut. The Municipality of Coimbra
owns about 1000 houses that could be rehabilitated, but gets no financial
support to do so.
While entire families are waiting and hoping
for a home, Coimbra’s city center remains abandoned and empty.