tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/pontifical-catholic-university-of-campinas-2798/articlesPontifical Catholic University of Campinas2018-05-04T10:48:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/952822018-05-04T10:48:14Z2018-05-04T10:48:14ZDeadly highrise fire in Brazil spotlights city’s housing crisis and the squatter movement it spawned<p>A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/building-in-sao-paulo-collapses-during-fire-victims-unknown/2018/05/01/0d7f5192-4d17-11e8-85c1-9326c4511033_story.html?utm_term=.a6380e1bae9b">massive fire in historic downtown São Paulo</a>, Brazil, on May 1 has killed at least one person, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/02/sao-paolo-fire-building-collapse-squatting-housing-crisis">three more suspected dead</a>. Several neighboring buildings, including a church, were destroyed, scorched or evacuated. </p>
<p>The 25-story building that caught fire and later collapsed was a vacant former police headquarters now occupied by squatters. Most of the several hundred homeless people living there <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-sao-paulo-building-fire-20180501-story.html">escaped</a>, though they lost everything – including pets – to the blaze.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://istoe.com.br/predio-desaba-durante-incendio-no-centro-de-sp/">tragedy</a> has shined a light on the homelessness crisis underway in this South American country of 200 million and exposed a social movement I study as an <a href="https://scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=x7Po_UEAAAAJ&hl=en">urban planning professor</a>: Brazil’s powerful homeless workers’ movement.</p>
<h2>Concentrated land ownership</h2>
<p>Brazil’s squatter movement reflects the country’s <a href="https://nextcity.org/features/view/sao-paulo-housing-crisis-master-plan-zeis-haddad-habitat-iii">severe urban housing crisis</a>. Brazil’s housing deficit <a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/noticias-em-destaque/4154-fundacao-joao-pinheiro-divulga-resultados-do-deficit-habitacional-no-brasil">is estimated at 6 million units</a>, according to the national census. </p>
<p>Urban homelessness has risen quickly in recent years. From 2013 to 2016, the <a href="http://g1.globo.com/profissao-reporter/noticia/2017/07/cresce-o-numero-de-moradores-de-rua-em-sao-paulo-e-no-rio-de-janeiro.html">homeless population</a> of Rio de Janeiro tripled, from 5,000 to 15,000. </p>
<p>In São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, an estimated 25,000 people live on the street. Many more live in informal settlements and slums. According to the city’s 2016 housing plan, São Paulo would need to build <a href="http://gestaourbana.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/20161221_PMH_PL_bxa.pdf">368,731 new housing units</a> to house all households currently living in risky situations. </p>
<p>The roots of Brazil’s housing shortage go back to slavery. By the time Brazil <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WzUwahzrxwAC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=brazil+1.5+million+slaves+fred+1888&source=bl&ots=Vr2ji9wUv5&sig=jbtTJNFGwda-Gou3ppAHI4emndY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWtuiO7OnaAhXyg-AKHeSiBQY4ChDoAQgvMAI#v=snippet&q=freed%20slaves&f=false">formally abolished slavery in 1888</a>, there were some <a href="http://www.palmares.gov.br/archives/25817">1.5 million freed people of African descent</a> – but none were given financial compensation, land or housing to help them start their lives anew. </p>
<p>Portuguese rule left Brazil with a <a href="https://climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Evolution_of_Land_Rights_In_Rural_Brazil_CPI_FinalEN.pdf">royal land grant system</a> that enabled the wealthiest individuals claim massive amounts of land as their own in the post-colonial period, while millions of <a href="https://www.oxfam.org.br/publicacoes/terrenos-da-desigualdade-terra-agricultura-e-desigualdade-no-brasil-rural">poor farmers and formerly enslaved people were left landless</a>. Today, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/08/25/434360144/for-brazils-1-percenters-the-land-stays-in-the-family-forever">1 percent of Brazilians still own half of all the land in the country</a>. </p>
<p>This inequality has given rise to numerous rural land reform efforts. The well-known Rural Landless Workers Movement has <a href="http://reporterbrasil.org.br/2009/01/mst-25-anos-camponeses-protagonizam-luta-pela-terra/">2 million members nationwide</a> and has settled approximately <a href="http://www.mst.org.br/quem-somos/">350,000 families on small plots</a> since its founding in 1994.</p>
<p>Its strategy: occupying unused land in the country’s sparsely populated interior and then working with policymakers to establish legal rights. </p>
<h2>Housing crisis</h2>
<p>The urban homeless movement grew out of this successful agrarian reform movement. </p>
<p>Squatters began <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/24/world/squatter-invasion-declines-in-brazil.html">organizing in São Paulo in the 1980s</a>. Today at least <a href="https://epoca.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2018/02/rotina-do-maior-acampamento-de-sem-teto-do-brasil.html">14 major Brazilian cities have homeless organizations</a> that systematically occupy vacant buildings as a way to provide housing for members and <a href="http://www.favelasaopaulomedellin.fau.usp.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Barrios-Populares-Medellin-Favelas-Sao-Paulo.pdf">advocate for more democratic, inclusive and affordable cities</a>. </p>
<p>The biggest of these groups, the <a href="http://www.mtst.org/">Roofless Workers Movement</a>, recently gained international attention when several dozen members <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/04/sem-teto-invadem-triplex-em-guaruja-em-protesto-contra-prisao-de-lula.shtml">occupied a vacant beachfront apartment</a> allegedly gifted to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a bribe. </p>
<p>The triplex was used as <a href="https://theconversation.com/presidential-corruption-verdict-shows-just-how-flawed-brazils-justice-system-is-90794">evidence in the controversial April 2018 corruption conviction that has now Lula serving a 12-year jail sentence</a>. However, no property deed was ever found and Lula denies that he owns the apartment. </p>
<p>After Lula was <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazil-in-political-crisis-over-jailed-president-4-essential-reads-91143">taken into police custody in early April</a>, outraged supporters from the Roofless Workers Movement staged a high-profile squat in the beachfront apartment, <a href="https://24.sapo.pt/atualidade/artigos/movimento-dos-trabalhadores-sem-teto-invade-o-apartamento-de-lula-em-protesto-contra-a-sua-detencao">unfurling a banner that read</a>, “If it’s Lula’s, then it’s ours. And if it’s not his, why was he arrested?”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217359/original/file-20180502-153869-1k1jzqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A neighboring building in downtown São Paulo also caught fire on May 1, 2018, after the federal police station collapsed in flames.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Andre Penner</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1980s and 1990s, Brazilian cities – <a href="http://www.redalyc.org/html/3238/323827368003/">like those in Latin America</a> and the <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-some-downtowns-are-back-13622.html">United States</a> – saw inner-city populations decline. As residents fled for the suburbs, downtowns across the country were left littered with abandoned buildings. </p>
<p>In 2000, an estimated <a href="http://www.moradiacentral.org.br/index.php?mpg=08.05.02">38,000 apartments and office spaces in downtown São Paulo</a> sat empty. By the late 1990s, São Paulo’s homeless movements had identified these vacant structures as an opportunity. </p>
<p>Previously, housing advocates had been pushing the mayor’s office to build new apartment buildings in the sprawling city’s outskirts, where land is more affordable. But living far from downtown has some major disadvantages. One <a href="http://www.nossasaopaulo.org.br/noticias/rede-nossa-sao-paulo-e-cidade-dos-sonhos-lancam-11a-edicao-da-pesquisa-de-mobilidade-urbana">2017 survey found that the average São Paulo resident’s commute was 2 hours and 53 minutes</a>. </p>
<p>So, with the support of housing advocates and researchers, São Paulo’s homeless community began pressuring local government to buy up abandoned downtown buildings – conveniently located near transit and jobs – and transform them into affordable housing. </p>
<p>Then, citing a <a href="https://www.ssrn.com/abstractID=2252991">Brazilian constitutional right to housing</a>, some shantytown residents took their advocacy to the next level. In 1997, they occupied an abandoned building. </p>
<h2>São Paulo’s squatters</h2>
<p>São Paulo Mayor Marta Suplicy felt enough pressure that in 2001 her administration launched “Live Downtown,” <a href="http://www.moradiacentral.org.br/index.php?mpg=08.05.04">a program intended to resettle</a> homeless people and slum dwellers into affordable permanent housing. </p>
<p>The city planned to buy up or seize some <a href="http://www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidade/secretarias/upload/arquivos/secretarias/governo/BalancoGestao.pdf">3,600 abandoned structures</a>, make them livable and then rent them, subsidized, to poor families. Suplicy also <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2571040/Participatory_urban_plans_for_Special_Zones_of_Social_Interest_in_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_Fostering_dense_central_areas">created “social interest” zones</a> to stimulate affordable housing development in certain areas of the city, including downtown. </p>
<p>However, the “social housing” units that have emerged from this program have tended to be <a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/progressive-planning-law-sao-paulo-mayor-downtown-plan">priced for working and middle-class families</a>. And Suplicy’s downtown repopulation program did not outlast her term, which ended in 2004.</p>
<p>Throughout these failed official efforts, the squatters have continued occupying empty buildings. Most of the time, the owners quickly obtain a judicial order to have police evict the squatters. They then take up residence in another abandoned building, starting the cycle over again. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217358/original/file-20180502-153869-zm7i8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evicted squatters in São Paulo vacate an abandoned building with all their belongings in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Leo Correa</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.academia.edu/download/30582250/2012_ISA_UrbanLawUrbanStruggles_eng_final.pdf">my interviews</a> with homeless activists, the squatters choose buildings that have laid empty for many years and whose owners owe significant back fines. That makes it more likely the city can seize the property. </p>
<p>They also targeted empty government buildings – especially those owned by the federal government – because they find that it makes negotiations easier.</p>
<p>Occasionally, squatters manage to stay put. The film “Leva” tells the history of the Mauá squat, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn2um8xhc4o&feature=youtu.be">one of São Paulo’s rare long-standing occupations</a>. </p>
<p>Currently, <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2018/05/sem-teto-expandiram-invasoes-na-crise-para-70-predios-em-sao-paulo.shtml">an average of 70 buildings</a> in downtown São Paulo are occupied on any given day, though reliable data is scarce. The Roofless Workers Movement reports that <a href="https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/movimento-de-sem-teto-reune-40-mil-familias-10416141#ixzz2toZLL63Y">40,000 families in six states are currently on its waiting list</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://youtu.be/rPOazTzS24s">2008 documentary</a> paints a lovely portrait of the homeless movement, focusing on four female squatters about to move into their new temporary home. It’s called “Dia de Festa” – “party day.” That’s what squatters call it every time they annex and occupy a new building.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Rodrigues Samora previously received funding from the São Paulo Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Hundreds of squatters were living in a vacant police station in São Paulo when fire broke out on May 1, killing up to four people. The residents were part of Brazil’s nationwide homeless movement.Patricia Rodrigues Samora, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, Pontifical Catholic University of CampinasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/788312017-06-16T06:00:05Z2017-06-16T06:00:05ZAt what cost gentrification? São Paulo expels drug users and razes buildings to ‘revitalise Crackland’<p><strong><em>This article, originally published on June 16 2017, has been updated to reflect the latest developments in São Paulo’s Cracolândia.</em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>It was a rainy Sunday morning when São Paulo’s “Crackland” was destroyed. </p>
<p>On May 21, 500 civil and military police descended on the downtown neighbourhood where, <a href="http://outraspalavras.net/brasil/cracolandia-cinco-faces-de-uma-acao-demente/">since the late 1990s</a>, hundreds to thousands of crack-cocaine users and drug dealers have congregated (hence its dubious appellation <em>Cracolândia</em>). </p>
<p><a href="http://sao-paulo.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,policia-faz-operacao-para-prender-traficantes-na-cracolandia,70001801582">Throwing gas grenades</a> and weilding barking dogs, the police raided the area with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrrbMiPhQRk">brutality</a> that shocked the city. </p>
<p>Tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets were unleashed in a “scatter” model, sending residents running. Canvas tents and shacks that provide shelter for dozens of homeless people were ripped down, razed and burned. </p>
<p>According to Mayor João Doria, the operation was meant to <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/policia-faz-operacao-na-cracolandia-no-centro-de-sp.ghtml">arrest traffickers</a>, who operate openly in the area, seize weapons and stop crack-cocaine users from gathering there. Some 50 people were arrested, and residents of buildings facing <em>Cracolândia</em>‘s streets were evicted.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fFph4wcdb9M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Police destroying Sao Paulo’s so-called Cracolandia.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>“Open arms” no more</h2>
<p>Far from being the lawless desperate place of Doria’s imagination, <em>Cracolândia</em> was, until recently, home to one of <a href="https://theconversation.com/sao-paulos-drug-policies-are-working-will-the-new-mayor-kill-them-67129">Latin America’s most innovative social inclusion initiatives</a>. Launched in 2014 by the progressive former mayor Fernando Haddad, <em>Programa de Braços Abertos</em> (Open Arms Programme) offered housing, meals, part-time work, social services and health care to the area’s homeless drug users. </p>
<p>On the 2016 campaign trail, Doria <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2016/10/1825546-doria-extinguira-programa-mas-mantera-acoes-anticrack-de-haddad.shtml">committed to shutting the program down</a>, which (despite contradictory scientific and human <a href="http://pbpd.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Pesquisa-De-Bra%C3%A7os-Abertos-1-2.pdf">evidence</a>, he called “not a good programme for the city”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173665/original/file-20170613-30081-19u2ntq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With the now-terminated Open Arms Programme, people in ‘Cracolândia’ had access to social workers, health care, jobs, training and other city services.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sebastian Liste/Noor for the Open Society Foundations</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On May 21, he partially fulfilled that promise. Armed with maps and photos of the facades, city officials emptied out and demolished local “hotels” and pensions, evicting entire families, offering no alternative housing or childcare. </p>
<p>Hours later, the <a href="http://www.huffpostbrasil.com/2017/05/24/acao-de-doria-na-cracolandia-e-midiatica-diz-ex-coordenador-d_a_22108146/">mayor took to the airwaves</a> to declare the “end of <em>Cracolândia</em>”. </p>
<p>Then, on June 26, his administration released its plan for what comes next: <a href="http://www.capital.sp.gov.br/noticia/prefeitura-de-sp-divulga-principais-diretrizes-do-projeto-redencao">Project Redemption</a>, an abstinence-based programme co-administered with São Paulo State that, while still short on details, seems to focus on <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/usuarios-da-cracolandia-dizem-desconhecer-programa-de-doria-e-seguem-atendidos-em-hoteis-de-projeto-de-haddad.ghtml">involuntary detox of drug users</a> in so-called “therapeutic communities”. </p>
<p>The proposal of forced hospitalisation has been dubbed “<a href="http://www.huffpostbrasil.com/2017/05/22/conselho-federal-de-psicologia-chama-acao-de-doria-na-cracolandi_a_22103998/">barbarism</a>” by the Federal Council of Psychology and repudiated by the <a href="http://www.cremesp.org.br/?siteAcao=NoticiasC&id=4528">State Council of Medicine</a> and <a href="http://justificando.cartacapital.com.br/2017/05/25/em-nota-associacao-de-juizes-repudia-politica-higienista-de-doria-na-cracolandia/">National Association of Judges</a>. </p>
<h2>The courts step in</h2>
<p>The city’s main aim seems to be not support for the city’s most marginalised residents but clearing them out so that this prime downtown swath of São Paulo can be redeveloped. </p>
<p>The newly issued Project Redemption guidelines include a prominent “revitalisation” section, which promises to “promote urban recuperation in the region”, including rehabbing old buildings and increasing population density. </p>
<p>Some 600 homeless drug users remain in the area, the mayor’s office recently announced, while the other 1,200 have simply <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/doria-diz-que-um-terco-dos-usuarios-permanece-na-cracolandia.ghtml">scattered across São Paulo</a>. </p>
<p>Those who have reconvened at Princess Isabel Square, two blocks away, have been subject to yet further <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2017/06/1892066-policia-faz-operacao-na-nova-cracolandia-em-sao-paulo.shtml">police operations</a>, in which officer poured cold water on <a href="http://www.diariodocentrodomundo.com.br/doria-e-alckmin-incendeiam-cracolandia-mais-uma-vez-para-faturar-com-o-inferno-por-mauro-donato/">people</a> and burned down their shacks. </p>
<p>Doria’s social assistance secretary says he even paid <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2017/06/1892559-gestao-doria-quer-pagar-a-usuarios-de-crack-que-pedirem-para-deixar-sp.shtml">a bus ticket for a homeless man to go back</a> to his home state of Maranhão, 3,000 km away, out of his own pocket. </p>
<p>In Brazil, <a href="http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=25334">the Constitution, as well as federal, state and municipal laws</a>, include <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/node/1947">strong housing protections</a>, and the São Paulo <a href="http://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/por-que-mp-e-defensoria-sao-contra-acao-de-doria-na-cracolandia/">Public Defender’s and Public Prosecutor’s offices</a> have questioned whether such actions violate residents’ rights. </p>
<p>Undeterred, the city has continued to eradicate the area’s <a href="http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/05/24/politica/1495579264_276005.html">hotels, cafeterias, and pensions</a>. At least three buildings were demolished and many others emptied and locked; residents of a <a href="http://sao-paulo.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,demolicao-de-imoveis-na-cracolandia-deixa-feridos,70001808892">neighbouring structure were wounded</a> when it collapsed. </p>
<p>For now, the courts have imposed a moratorium on <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/justica-proibe-remocoes-compulsorias-e-demolicoes-de-predios-habitados-na-cracolandia.ghtml">compulsory evictions and demolitions</a> in <em>Cracolândia</em>, asserting that by law households must be previously notified, registered and provided shelter. </p>
<h2>Renewal for whom?</h2>
<p>Since the 1990s, numerous city and state leaders have sought the right formula for “revitalising” <em>Cracolândia</em>. </p>
<p>Strategies have ranged from turning <a href="http://www.salasaopaulo.art.br/home.aspx">a former railway station</a> into a concert hall to, in 2012, advancing the ambitious <em><a href="https://nextcity.org/features/view/the-many-lives-of-luz">Nova Luz</a></em> redevelopment project, which would have overhauled nearly 40 hectares of a formerly elite residential area.</p>
<p>Since the 1950s, the elegant 19th-century centre city neighbourhoods of Luz and Santa Efigênia have become working class, with commerce in electronics and the auto parts trade as well as few abandoned buildings <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn2um8xhc4o">now occupied by squatters</a> from Brazil’s powerful housing movement. The area is also home to poor families who’ve lived there for decades, small businesses, cheap hotels, tenements, decrepit pensions and, of course, <em>Cracolândia</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173867/original/file-20170614-8031-qqtjs0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Squatters have reclaimed many vacant buildings in Luz, once an elegant residential area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patricia Samora</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the yellow line of the <a href="http://pt.saopaulomap360.com/mapa-metro-sao-paulo#.WTIZDcm1uRs">metro</a> opened in May 2010, connecting Luz to the commercial and financial centre of Faria Lima Avenue, property values in the neighbourhood appreciated markedly.</p>
<p>But even in São Paulo’s hot real estate market, developers did not jump at the opportunity to replace the centuries-old degraded buildings with modern highrises, as they had in other urban frontiers. Many of the most coveted blocks present costly and time-consuming legal barriers to redevelopment. </p>
<p>In 2011, Mayor Gilberto Kassab almost succeeded issuing a concession to a private developer to <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1807132/Misusing_the_City_Statute_in_S%C3%A3o_Pulo_The_Nova_Luz_Urban_Renewal_Project">evict residents, demolish buildings and oust merchants</a> from some 40 blocks, claiming them for public use (akin to what American law calls <a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/eminent+domain">eminent domain</a>).</p>
<p>Accompanying that revitalisation effort was Operation Smother, <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/2012/02/um-mes-apos-acao-da-policia-cracolandia-resiste-no-centro-de-sp.html">a series of violent police crackdowns</a> on <em>Cracolândia</em>. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2012-01-19/sao-paulo-s-drug-war-takes-surreal-turn-dom-phillips">The strategy, then as now, was</a> to detain drug users, force them into treatment, demolish and rebuild. </p>
<p>By early 2013, the courts had stepped in, and Mayor Fernando Haddad <a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/new-sao-paulo-mayor-shelves-massive-development-project">abandoned the inherited project</a>. In its place, he launched the pioneering Open Arms Programme.</p>
<p>Today, with renewed energy from Mayor Doria, redevelopment is again top priority. The plan to raze at least two blocks of Luz to implement a mixed-use housing and commerce development looks <a href="http://www.jaimelerner.com/novaluz.html">similar to <em>Nova Luz</em></a>. But it includes more affordable housing units developed through public-private partnerships, which urban planners caution <a href="https://www.cartacapital.com.br/sociedade/acoes-de-doria-na-cracolandia-abrem-caminho-para-o-mercado-imobiliario">will spur gentrification</a>. </p>
<p>Doria used a different legal tool this time, too. “<a href="http://noticias.r7.com/sao-paulo/doria-planeja-desapropriar-e-demolir-imoveis-na-cracolandia-22032017">Administrative requisition</a>” allows properties that present “<a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/geral/noticia/2017-05/prefeitura-derrubara-imoveis-na-cracolandia-por-serem-area-de-interesse">imminent public danger</a>” to be seized and destroyed. </p>
<p>The courts have now suspended this process, with the Prosecutor’s Office insisting that the mayor adhere to the São Paulo master plan’s requirement that <a href="https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2017/06/02/mp-diz-que-dispersao-de-pessoas-na-cracolandia-e-afoita-e-protocola-acao-contra-prefeitura.htm">residents and merchants</a> sign off on all projects that impact them.</p>
<p>Doria, a multi-millionare political outsider, ran for mayor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/americas/a-rich-apprentice-host-in-politics-but-this-mayor-says-hes-no-trump.html">promising to shake things up in São Paulo</a>. That much he has done. Isr displacing thousands to appease the unrelenting forces of real estate what voters had in mind?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Rodrigues Samora receives funding from São Paulo Research Foudation during her post doctoral internship in which the case of "Nova Luz" was studied. </span></em></p>Luz, a once-elegant 19th-century neighbourhood in downtown São Paulo, is prime real estate. But redevelopment means clearing out a homeless encampment known as “Crackland”.Patricia Rodrigues Samora, Professor of Urban Management, Pontifical Catholic University of CampinasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672082016-10-25T06:12:48Z2016-10-25T06:12:48ZIs this the end of slum upgrading in Brazil?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142032/original/image-20161017-12418-k43htv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's favelas are famous, but so are its ambitious efforts to bring roads, water, electricity, and land rights to its informal urban settlements. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eflon/4404716468/in/photolist-7HejKo-e4K2Sk-e4QDS7-4KN9xj-6fcLM6-7V1PRy-92DKEA-qY8mfT-yCswq-92DKuL-zcRQ-5gcG-a2G7ob-6gkdZQ-e4K5Rr-5wGem7-4rLkD1-e4QmFQ-x2jXD-e4K55r-6giKuq-e4JLjn-e4QEEu-5Xeo2k-7VhRir-77HkBB-e4QAPo-5QgMvU-5QgL3s-e4JS8t-92DKKN-84kUAe-4AMfB3-e4Jv1R-ej9Jb8-e4JujF-5Us62f-e4JQPB-8r8cuD-e4JxaB-cuEssA-5Qcw4r-LvF8G-9BKoJr-4pbx1V-5UnHFF-7XR2NK-92ADxD-aEtMgN-92ABiZ">eflon/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Brazil’s ongoing economic and political drama, one of the latest developments is a congressional proposal to freeze federal funds at 2016 levels, adjusting the 2017 national budget only for inflation. This move would mean deep cuts to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/a-camara-votara-na-pec-241-que-obrigaria-cortes-drasticas-por-20-anos-sem-ouvir-especialistas/">spending on social programnes</a>.</p>
<p>Though such reductions would affect programmes that <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/Slum-Upgrading-Lessons-from-Brazil.pdf">launched millions of Brazilians into the middle class</a> and put the developing country <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/2015-un-millennium-development-goals-brazil-hits-target-others-failing-poverty-education-1467208">on track to meet</a> many of the <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/">Millennium Development Goals</a>, the senate seems likely to approve the budget freeze. </p>
<p>For Brazilian cities, this government belt-tightening promises a disquieting change: the possible end of the country’s <a href="http://www.iadb.org/en/news/news-releases/2012-09-05/slum-upgrading-lessons-learned-in-brazil,10096.html">ambitious slum-upgrading programs</a>. Despite Brazil’s great wealth, many poor neighbourhoods known as <em>favelas</em> (slums or “informal settlements” in urban planning parlance) still struggle with inadequate construction quality, no sanitation, environmental risk factors and lack of the most basic infrastructure. </p>
<h2>The peripheral city</h2>
<p>In the past, the country has approached its slums in various ways, including razing them and displacing the residents. The focus on upgrading started in the late 1980s, aided by a new constitution in 1988 that included <a href="http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=25334">housing</a> as a right, alongside health, food, and education. The constitution also put the responsibility for urban development – meaning housing, sanitation and transportation – squarely in government hands. </p>
<p>This strategy replaced a century of mass displacement of poor people, from the “city beautification” movements of the early 20th century to real estate speculation in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1980s, the military government enforced <a href="http://www.observatoriodasmetropoles.net/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=442%3Aditadura-militar-e-favelas-estigma-ao-debate-sobre-a-cidade-1969-1973&Itemid=165&lang=pt">massive evictions</a> of poor residents living in valuable areas of the city. </p>
<p>As shantytowns were bulldozed to make way for high-end developments, poor people were forced to move increasingly far away from cities’ commercial centres. Today, Brazilian slums are most commonly found in the <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/CA_Images/CityStatuteofBrazil_English_Ch1.pdf">urban periphery</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to pushing the poor to the outskirts, such measures encouraged the sudden creation of entirely new neighbourhoods within cities. For example, Rio de Janeiro’s <a href="http://www.aldiadallas.com/2016/08/10/conoce-la-favela-ciudad-de-dios-en-rio-de-janeiro/">City of God</a>, <a href="http://www.revistadehistoria.com.br/secao/capa/cidade-de-deus-e-condominio-do-diabo">once so violent</a> it inspired a <a href="http://www.miramax.com/movie/city-of-god/">film</a> of the same name, dates back to 1960s removal policies that pushed out residents from 63 slums in the city’s southern zone – today the wealthiest part of Rio.</p>
<h2>Brazil’s urban reform movement</h2>
<p>By the late 1980s, cities were trying new strategies. Pushed by the powerful urban social movements of Brazil’s early democratic period and bolstered by the 1988 constitution, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Recife, among others, began to implement affordable and modest step-by-step upgrades to slums in partnership with residents. </p>
<p>They addressed the critical question of land tenure for those who’d built their homes on public land with <a href="http://www.ambitojuridico.com.br/site/index.php?n_link=revista_artigos_leitura&artigo_id=6570">Certificates of Real Right to Use</a>, which fell short of a title but recognised the slum-dwellers’ right to occupy. Cities also created new zoning laws that designated some neighbourhoods as having a “<a href="https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00959913">special social interest</a>” – meaning, they must stay affordable for people in the lowest income brackets. </p>
<p>Feeling safe from the threat of eviction for the first time, locals began to invest in their homes, replacing precarious tin shanties with larger and higher-quality constructions. They opened small businesses in their neighbourhoods. </p>
<p>In 2001, the new <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/CA_Images/CityStatuteofBrazil_English_Ch6.pdf">City Statute</a> gave local governments a federal mandate to create concrete legal tools to address the problem of “irregular” urban property. Low economic growth and rising unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s had spurred more people to settle in slums; population density of Brazil’s informal settlements was now between <a href="http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/16/16137/tde-27042010-151732/pt-br.php">500 and 2,000 inhabitants per hectare </a>. </p>
<p>The problems facing these neighbourhoods had also become <a href="http://unhabitat.org/books/sao-paulo-a-tale-of-two-cities-2/">more complex</a>, and upgrading would require significant physical reworking of the area. These included building drainage, widening roads, building green spaces, and the like, all of which required more funding, generally obtained from international donors.</p>
<p>Successful examples such as <a href="http://www0.rio.rj.gov.br/habitacao/favela_bairro.htm">Favela Bairro</a> in Rio de Janeiro, are from this period. There, using funds from the <a href="http://www.iadb.org/en/news/news-releases/2012-09-05/slum-upgrading-lessons-learned-in-brazil,10096.html">International Development Bank</a>, the city constructed a sewage system, implemented environmental risk control, channelled streams, and created parks.</p>
<h2>Federally funded slum upgrades</h2>
<p>Eventually, the government designated federal resources to help Brazilian cities fix up their slums, in the form of the <a href="http://www.pac.gov.br">Growth Acceleration Program</a> (PAC, in its Portuguese acronym). This is the program now endangered by budget cuts. </p>
<p>In 2007, 20.7 billion reals (approximately US$10 billion) in PAC funds supported <a href="http://www.rc21.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/D4-Petrarolli-Moretti.pdf">3,113 housing interventions</a>, including for cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants – a rarity, since Brazilian housing policy generally focuses on large cities. In 2010, a second <a href="http://pac.gov.br/sobre-o-pac/apresentacoes">PAC</a> allocated 17 billion reals for 415 projects, targeted at larger cities in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.</p>
<p>The PAC put slums <a href="http://www.ipea.gov.br/agencia/images/stories/PDFs/TDs/td_2174.pdf">at the centre of federal housing policy</a>. This focus has been decreasing since 2009, when the government launched its subsisided home-ownership program, <em>Minha Casa Minha Vida</em> (“My Home, My Life
”), but not since the 1980s has the future of poor urban neighbourhoods been so unclear. </p>
<h2>Exclusion upon exclusion</h2>
<p>This uncertainty is particularly concerning given the relationship between poverty, race and informal settlements in Brazil. Many slums originated after abolition in 1888, when freed slaves began to build their own homes the only way they could afford: constructing shacks in overlooked urban areas with less threat of eviction. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/rio-450-anos/noticia/2015/01/conheca-historia-da-1-favela-do-rio-criada-ha-quase-120-anos.html">oldest <em>favela</em></a> in Rio de Janeiro, <em>Morro da Providência</em>, was founded in 1905 on an unbuilt swath of the city bordered by factories, graveyards, and railroad tracks. Today, its population is still largely black and brown, and its problems have grown from insufficient infrastructure to serious gang-related violence.</p>
<p>Black and mixed-race people still make up the majority of residents in Brazil’s informal settlements. <a href="http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=25311">New maps of Rio</a> reveal that the iconic beachside neighbourhoods of the city’s wealthy southern zone are 80% to 90% white, while people of colour live in the poorer north and west zones, with the highest concentration in <em>favelas</em>. The <a href="http://bit.ly/1PosJKu">project</a> was undertaken by a geography student and based on US maps that show how poverty, race and neighbourhood correlate in that country. </p>
<h2>Complicated times and an uncertain future</h2>
<p>Brazil’s current economic hardship and rising unemployment have sent more families to live in slum conditions, and more cities now have informal settlements than in previous decades. The latest census data show that (<a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/docman/cei/informativos-cei-eventuais/634-deficit-habitacional-06-09-2016/file">26.5% of Brazilian households</a>), or 13 million citizens, lack basic infrastructure.</p>
<p>Poor neighbourhoods are also <a href="http://portalgeo.rio.rj.gov.br/estudoscariocas/download%5C3190_FavelasnacidadedoRiodeJaneiro_Censo_2010.PDF">growing denser</a>. This reflects, in part, the difficulty that poor people face in finding urban housing, thanks to skyrocketing real estate prices (a relic of the country’s boom years). In São Paulo alone, the city <a href="http://www.habitasampa.inf.br/files/CadernoPMH.pdf">estimates</a> that it would need to construct 368,731 new homes to be able to fill its housing gap. There, some 811,377 households lack one or more basic urban service like drainage or sewage. </p>
<p>Thus, the slums are “<a href="http://www.ipea.gov.br/portal/images/stories/PDFs/livros/livros/160718_caracterizacao_tipologia_cap03.pdf">swelling</a>”. Their area does not increase, but the population does. Buildings are growing taller, making upgrades harder. </p>
<p>Even after 30-plus years of upgrading efforts, today, in some municipalities, <a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/docman/cei/informativos-cei-eventuais/634-deficit-habitacional-06-09-2016/file">nearly half of households</a> still lack basic infrastructure. Waste treatment and removal remains the <a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/docman/cei/informativos-cei-eventuais/634-deficit-habitacional-06-09-2016/file">greatest challenge</a>. And the poorest slums are situated in unsafe locations such as steep hillsides or flood zones, areas heavily impacted by climate change. This has caused dramatic <a href="http://www.anppas.org.br/encontro4/cd/ARQUIVOS/GT11-510-219-20080510105031.pdf">loss of life and physical property</a>. </p>
<p>Urban poverty isn’t just a problem for the people who live in such conditions: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/07/brazil-rich-zika-virus-poor">epidemics such as dengue and Zika</a> are attributed to the precarious urban-environmental context of Brazilian cities. </p>
<p>If Brazil moves forward with its proposed budget cuts, there is little hope that Brazilian urban households will overcome their challenges in the next two decades. The country can ill afford such savings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Rodrigues Samora has received funding from the Sao Paulo Research Foudation for her research.</span></em></p>For decades, Brazil has worked to improve conditions in its poorest neighbourhoods: building roads, drainage, lighting, and safer housing. Will budget cuts end its ambitious slum-upgrading efforts?Patricia Rodrigues Samora, Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of CampinasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.