The growing proportion of housing expenses (rent, repairs, and utilities) is neither new nor exclusive to Portugal. However, since the distant year of 1988, when that proportion was only 12%, to the current 39%, the growth has been sustained.
Source: Eurostat
This is a very indirect way of analyzing the problem, and there are certainly specific indicators that show it with greater precision. But in 2010, when it reached 30%, didn't it become obvious that we were ignoring something that was only going to get worse? Was there no government or local authority slightly worried?
This inaction is yet another instance of the inability to solve problems that extend beyond the election cycle: from mobility, where we have literally missed every train, to the ticking of the demographic time bomb (with its side effects, such as immigration).
