João Dias’s documentary presents the SAAL project – Local Outpatient Support Service – through the voices of residents, architects and officials involved in the process which, between 1974 and 1976, sought to address the problems of social housing in Portugal.

SAAL was conceived on the initiative of the architect Nuno Portas, Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Planning in the First Provisional Government. The SAAL programme consisted of non-repayable grant-funded housing projects, designed and supervised on the ground by architects and engineers commissioned by the State, but also with the help of the residents themselves. This programme aimed to eradicate and improve the situation of 25 per cent of the Portuguese population who, in April 1974, were still living in shanty towns and shacks across the country, without access to water, sewerage, electricity or sanitation facilities.

The course of this project and its disintegration over the years that followed reflect the growing indifference of successive governments in recent decades towards the problem, as well as the lack of solutions for social and decent housing – a right to which every single individual is entitled. ‘What exacerbated the SAAL problem, at least as far as Porto is concerned, was that it shifted from resolving the problems of a single neighbourhood to a debate and action (…) concerning the city as a whole.’ Siza Vieira.