THE LOOKOUT | Paula Rocha lives with her children in a garage and was excluded from the competition for VFX social houses

Paula Rocha couldn’t believe it when she found out that her name had been excluded due to lack of a signature

Paula Rocha was excluded due to lack of a signature. A 47-year-old woman has lived for almost three months in a garage in Castanheira do Ribatejo with her two children, one of whom is a minor.

Living for almost three months, with her two children, one of them a minor, in a garage in Castanheira do Ribatejo, Paula Rocha saw the application she submitted to the public competition for the allocation of social housing from the Vila Franca de Xira City Council being excluded due to lack of a signature. Desperate, the 47-year-old woman tried to correct the situation, but when she was alerted there was nothing she could do.
“I only found out about this when the results of the competition came out. They never contacted me, sent a letter or email, nothing. I still complained, but nothing was done”, she says to O MIRANTE, regretting that, taking into account the situation in which she finds herself living with her two children and which is known to the municipality, the services did not try to alert her to something that would be so simple to solve. This was the fourth time that Paula Rocha applied for the contest and, once again, without success.
In the last competition, 400 people applied for the nine available houses, and just a few days before the competition opened, only five applications had their processes properly instructed, in the opinion of the technicians who analyzed the processes. A panorama that led the municipality to extend the competition deadline by 20 days. The contest ended in February. Our newspaper questioned the municipality about the reason for excluding Paula Rocha’s candidacy but we did not receive a response at the end of this edition.
It was after being forced to leave the apartment where she lived due to lack of safety conditions that, remember, Paula Rocha moved with her two children to one of the garages on Rua Sacadura Cabral. Social Security validated the conditions of the garage and paid the deposit, worth 250 euros. The rent has been borne by the tenant who, although she has tried to resemble that single, windowless room as a home, she lives in anguish at not being able to provide better conditions for her children. “They are not doing well. The youngest cries and says he misses home because this is not a home for him, or for anyone else. It was supposed to be temporary, but now I don’t know when we will get out of here,” she says.