'Thousands of Portuguese are standing up for the right to affordable housing.'

In Portugal, many Portuguese, including the middle class, cannot afford to buy a home because of rising rents, rising house prices and rising mortgage interest rates. Several thousand people took to the streets of Lisbon and other major Portuguese cities on Saturday to advocate for the constitutional basic right to housing.

The protests, organized by civil society groups, were planned in 24 cities across the country. This is the second protest this year that focuses on affordable housing, in the context of continuously rising rental prices and soaring mortgage interest rates, which has a big impact on most households due to mortgages. In Lisbon, there was also a rise''Climate change issue some protesters wanted to highlight.

In recent days Portugal has faced high temperatures for the season, with thermometers reading at least 32 degrees Celsius in the capital on Saturday.

Many Portuguese, including the middle class, cannot afford to buy a home because of rising rents, rising property prices and rising mortgage interest rates, driven by factors including a growing influx of foreign investors and tourists looking for short-term rentals,''causing prices to rise and forcing locals to leave their neighborhoods. From 2020 to 2021, housing costs in Portugal rose by 157%. From 2015 to 2021, rents rose 112%, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency.

Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe and has long attracted investment amid a low-wage economy. Less than half of Portuguese workers earned less than 1,000 euros a month last year, according to the Labor Ministry.