The City Council of Famalicão will support 274 families in the municipality over a year in their housing expenses. The proposal to grant the support was approved last Thursday, in a meeting of the executive under the municipal programme Happy Home –Rent support ("Casa Feliz - Apoio à Renda"). The measure involves a municipal investment of 279,600 thousand euros.
The support is divided into three levels A, B and C, corresponding to 100 euros, 75 euros and 50 euros monthly. With level A 134 families were benefited, with level B 116 families and with level C 24 families.
In the last two years, the municipality has increased municipal investment by 40 per cent from 200 thousand euros in 2018 to almost 280 thousand euros in 2020. The number of families benefited also increased significantly from 199 families to 274.
According to Mayor Paulo Cunha, "this increase in beneficiaries has to do primarily with extensive information about this support, and the various social measures of the council - people are better informed because our services make information available to all parishes and the whole population". On the other hand, "there has been a national trend in recent years, which has led to an increase in the value of rents, which has caused more people to seek help".
It should be noted that applications for this municipal support took place during the month of December. However, with the appearance of the Covid 19 pandemic, the municipality launched an extraordinary support to the rents to help families who suffer loss of income due to the coronavirus. In addition, the municipality decided to extend the deadline for applications to the income support scheme under the "Happy House" project.
For Paulo Cunha, the investment with housing is "fundamental and indisputable". "The social area is an area where the budget is not previously defined, the city council gives the residents a social rearguard and the housing issue is absolutely essential".
It should be remembered that in 2005, the City Council created the Happy Home ("Casa Feliz") programme, with support for the works, where families in greatest need are entitled to financial aid of up to 5 thousand euros, to rehabilitate their homes, providing the minimum conditions of well-being. Many hundreds of families have already benefited from this.
In 2012, the Happy Home programme was extended with income support. Here the aim is precisely to support families who are living in rented accommodation and who, in a temporary and unexpected way, find themselves without financial conditions to fulfil their contracts with their landlords.
