The proposal, presented at a private meeting of the executive, was voted against by the independent movement and the PSD, and voted in favour of by the PS, BE and CDU.

On the sidelines of the meeting, the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, told reporters that if the municipality prioritised people who are evicted, it could lead others to default on their rent in order to get a house.

"We currently have about 1,000 families waiting for a house. They all have a story and they all naturally have an added difficulty. If, suddenly, we started to give priority, within this list, to people who are evicted, any of those people who are in thousandth place would want to be evicted and would default on their rent to jump ahead", he considered.

In addition to the creation of the exchange, designed to respond to serious cases of eviction and cases that require a rapid response, the CDU proposal intended for the council to propose to the Government the creation of an intervention programme in the areas where the municipal districts are concentrated, for multidisciplinary teams to be formed and for the schools that were transferred to the municipality as part of the decentralisation to be refurbished.

For the CDU, it was also necessary to set up the Municipal Council for Migrant Communities and to hold an open meeting of the Municipal Security Council.

Arguing that the proposal "talks a little about everything and about something else", the Social Democrat councillor Alberto Machado stated that the focus of the motion's objective had been lost.

"When you want to talk about everything in the same document, sometimes different visions are mixed together and we do not agree with some of the issues that the motion addresses", he said, emphasising, however, the need to "look at some specific problems" such as education.

On the subject of housing, the councillor said that he disagreed with the CDU's position and defended the need to "not mix up" what is support for emergency situations, which he believes is the responsibility of the State, and the responsibilities of the municipal housing company.

Speaking to reporters, the CDU councillor, Ilda Figueiredo, regretted the rejection of the proposal, but said she believed that the majority, led by Rui Moreira, would "take some of these issues into account".

"I hope so, for the good of the city of Porto", said the councillor, arguing that in this matter the council should not replace the State, but that it could, through the affordable rental programme, cover these cases.

"Naturally, only for urgent cases", she said.

The BE councillor, Sérgio Aires, said that, in addition to the cases waiting for municipal housing, there were other cases of "emerging emergency" that could not be left solely to the responsibility of Social Security.

"The city does not have, within its municipal housing, a number of houses reserved for situations of this nature and there are other cities that do", he said, adding that this would, however, imply specific criteria and different from the waiting list.

Sérgio Aires also reinforced the need to create multidisciplinary teams to support integration and inclusion in the areas with the highest population concentration in Porto.

Also Read: Porto Council evicts 2 families who used houses for drug trafficking (Portuguese version)