Just a Change is a non-profit organization that mobilizes volunteers to renovate homes for people living in poverty and inadequate housing conditions across Portugal.

Housing poverty affects around 6% of the Portuguese population, with many individuals and families living in unsafe environments marked by structural degradation, poor hygiene and sanitation, and, in some cases, lack of access to electricity and running water. This reality particularly impacts elderly people living alone and families struggling to meet basic needs.

By carrying out hands-on renovation projects, the organization improves living conditions, restores dignity, and promotes social inclusion. Home renovation is not the end goal, but the starting point for change: a safe and healthy living space creates the conditions for beneficiaries to regain stability, rebuild hope, and move forward with renewed confidence.

Our Mission

We renovate houses without roofs, windows and doors. Houses where there is no hot water or electricity. We renovate homes where it gets cold.​
We renovate houses because we believe that living conditions have a direct impact on reducing poverty and crime in the population.
We renovate homes because we know it improves public health and energy efficiency in our country.
We renovate houses because we know that this can be the starting point for a new life.
We renovate houses so that everyone has a decent place to live.​

We rebuild lives because we bring volunteers full of joy and hope to people’s homes.
We rebuild lives because we give hope to those who no longer had it, and because we mobilize the community to help and recover their loved ones.

​We rebuild lives because home is the most important place in the world and we all deserve to have one.

To date, Just a Change has rehabilitated more than 670 homes and 280 institutions, benefiting over 28,000 people and mobilising more than 34,000 volunteers, with a presence in over 50 municipalities across Portugal. In 2025 alone, Just a Change achieved its highest ever number of homes rehabilitated in a single year, with 139 homes, strengthening its capacity to reach more families and communities. These results reflect a path of sustained growth and, above all, thousands of lives transformed through better living conditions, greater safety, comfort and dignity.