Joana Pestana Lages, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Socioeconomic Change and the Territory (Dinâmia'CET-Iscte), has just been awarded a €1.5 million ERC Starting Grant, funded by the European Research Council (ERC), to develop the project HOUSING FREEDOM.

Housing as a Tool for Freedom: A Future Away from Incarceration proposes an innovative look at one of today's greatest social challenges: how to support, through housing, the reintegration of ex-prisoners, breaking cycles of exclusion, stigmatisation, and recidivism, looking at Portugal, Belgium, and Norway. “One way to prevent people from returning to prison is to guarantee them decent housing conditions. Having a home is one of the foundations of freedom,” says Joana Pestana Lages, project coordinator.

Over five years, the project will study the housing trajectories of people who have been deprived of their liberty in Portugal, Belgium, and Norway. A team of researchers from Iscte will focus on evidence-based housing and urban policy strategies relevant to ongoing debates on prison reform, housing, and human rights. The results – stability in the lives of former prisoners, access to social support, and possible recidivism – will be analszed and used as a basis for recommendations and models. 

“This project is based on the idea that freedom cannot be designed with bars. We want to contribute to new social, urban, and housing policies that break the cycle of prison, poverty, and social exclusion,” says architect and researcher Joana Pestana Lages. According to the Iscte researcher, “the home, as a basic condition for human stability, is a material condition for freedom.”

Iscte - Knowledge and Innovation has already received €9.5 million in six grants from the European Research Council (ERC). “ERC funding—a highly competitive European competition—recognizes the excellence of the research produced at Iscte and confirms the ambition of our teams,” says Maria de Lurdes Rodrigues, Dean of Iscte. “We want to transform knowledge into public decision-making tools, in partnership with local authorities and organizations, so that the results effectively reach policies and people.”