On this episode of the End of Tourism Podcast, I’m joined by Joana and Davide of Stop Despejos (Stop Evictions). Based in Lisbon (Portugal), Stop Despejos is an anti-capitalist, feminist and anti-racist, horizontal political collective, fighting for the right to housing and the right to the city. Through mutual aid, direct action, obstruction of evictions and media campaigns, they defend the right of inhabitants to keep living in their homes and neighborhoods against institutional racism, soaring rental prices, the commodification of housing, touristification and gentrification. As an autonomous grassroots movement, Stop Despejos believes that a trulyinclusive city can only be achieved by collective organization and solidarity networks between its inhabitants. Show Notes The Question of Rent in Lisbon The Arrival of Ryan Air and Airbnb in Portugal The Golden Visa Scheme The Backlash Against Foreigners Can be Change Happen Through Political Parties or Only at the Grassroots? How to Build Solidarity in a Community How Can We Live More Meaningfully? Homework Stop Despejos Official Website Stop Despejos YouTube Stop Despejos Facebook Aldrava Co-op Housing Not Profit Transcript [00:00:00] Chris: Good morning, Joanna and Davide to the end of Tourism podcast. Thanks for joining me today. [00:00:07] Davide: Thank you. Good morning, chris. Oh, good afternoon. [00:00:10] Joana: Thank you for having, yes, good afternoon. Thank you for having us. [00:00:14] Chris: My pleasure, my honor. Now, I'd like, since we're always doing this virtually, and since there's always time zones to deal with and that kind of thing, I'm hoping that you'd both be able to illustrate a little about where you find yourselves today and what the world looks like there a few days after these mass demonstrations that we'll discuss shortly. [00:00:37] Joanne: Yes, well, I'm I'm in Alfama which is a really old neighborhood in the center of Lisbon. Actually Davide lives in the same neighborhood. And today, the weather is great. It's really sunny and you start to see a lot of tourists. You start to notice that you know, these amounts of tourists that we were used to see before the pandemic starts showing up again. And honestly, I'm still recovering from the, the demonstration during the weekend because we were what, like three months working for this demonstration, probably around three, four months. So yeah, it was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it at the end for sure. [00:01:27] Davide: I, I am in the same neighborhood in Alfama, and the sky is perfectly blue. It's classic Lisbon. It's a city that everybody loves. [00:01:38] Chris: Thank you, David. Debbie Day. Thank you, Joanna. And so you both come to us today on behalf of an organization called Stop Despejos. Now, before we get into the gritty details of the demonstrations, I'm wondering if you two would be willing to share a bit about the history of the organization, why it was started, and perhaps when and by whom, [00:02:07] Davide: Yeah, it, it's called Stop Despejos. It just means "stop eviction." It was founded in in 2017, about six years ago because at that time... In 2012, during Troika there was, after, after the financial crisis crisis in Portugal, I mean all over the world in Portugal the International Monetary Fund and the European Union understood that there was a great opportunity for real estate market in tourism in Portugal. And so they convinced the government, the right-wing government to change the law about renting. And it was much, much simpler to evict people. Mm-hmm. It has become much simpler and one of the ways is actually not to renew contracts. Okay. So the contract normally lasts five years. So just five years after the new law, all people were evicted. And so including myself, and that's why we founded this organization. Wow. Joanna, do you have anything to add in that regard? [00:03:18] Joana: Yes, I joined during 2018, so about an year after David joined. Actually, I also