Even Habita! is feeling the squeeze: The group’s landlord will not renew its lease, which expires next year. She was preparing to meet with Lisbon residents facing eviction. The previous afternoon, Rita Silva, a researcher at Habita!, a housing rights organization, leaned forward intently on a tattered red sofa, her elbows on her knees, surrounded by bookshelves and hand-painted banners inside the group’s storefront headquarters in the trendy Intendente neighborhood. On the day Ben Mitas took his daughter to the park, two women sat on a nearby bench, strollers at their feet, as they chatted in English. Here in the Portuguese capital, English speakers are seemingly everywhere. Ben Mitas, 40, a mortgage broker, travels back to Florida frequently for work, but their life is in Lisbon where their two small children are in pre-K and day care. Last year, they bought a 19th-century house in Lapa, a historic neighborhood perched high above the river, with embassies and 18th-century palaces and mansions with tiled facades, that they will renovate into their “forever home,” said Megan Mitas, 31. Mitas and his wife, Megan, moved to Portugal from Florida in 2019, renting a four-bedroom apartment for 2,500 euros (or about $2,700) a month in Campo de Ourique, a quiet neighborhood with small shops and restaurants. He had bought the wine from a quiosque, the ubiquitous park kiosks, a luxury of living in Lisbon. Ben Mitas sipped Vinho Verde from a stemmed wineglass while he watched his daughter play on a swing one afternoon in January.
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