Salette Silva, a 62-year-old unemployed woman, stopped receiving in January the extraordinary rent support of 200 euros per month that had been granted to her. Nine months later, she is still waiting for the payment to be regularized, which forced her to financially depend on her mother to pay the rent and on her son to cover the electricity. "It is very sad," she told magazine Sábado, adding that she also turns to family for food expenses. Salette worked as a childminder until she lost her job, and when she could no longer afford the cost of housing on her own, she moved in with her mother. In 2023 she found her own house and received a letter informing her that she met the conditions for the support.
The extraordinary rent support was created in 2023 and is intended to remain in effect until December 31, 2028. The benefit is automatic for those who meet the requirements and can reach 200 euros per month when the rent burden rate is equal to or greater than 35%. Salette started receiving the payment in October 2024, describing it as "a miracle," and continued to receive it throughout 2025, until January, when the amount stopped coming into her account. In April, accompanied by a social worker, she went to an IHRU office, where she was told that the process was in order and the situation would be handled, but since then the money has not been paid again.
Magazine Sábado reports that thousands of citizens are complaining about delays in the payment of this benefit. The Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, guaranteed in October 2025 that the missing support would be paid that month with back payments, but this did not happen. In November, it was reported that the support for 43,000 people was suspended due to inconsistencies in the data. Sábado questioned IHRU on August 12 about the number of complaints received and the expected date for the regularization of the amounts, but received no response.
The Office of the Provedor de Justiça warned about the impact of the failures and called on the government to review the functioning of the extraordinary rent support. Between May and July 2025, it received more than 1,000 communications related to this issue. In a statement, the Provedor stated that "in several situations, citizens claim that their social and economic situation has ended up worsening due to State failures." In February, the Government acknowledged the pressure on IHRU's responses and indicated that it was restructuring the support, but by September complaints continued to accumulate.
