São Paulo/New York – for the Right to the City

São Paulo/New York – Pelo Direito à Cidade

March 13-20, 2010

Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning & the Environment

São Paulo/New York – for the Right to the City

São Paulo/New York – Pelo Direito à Cidade

Participants:

Students from Pratt Institute, New York University, Hunter College: Professor Perry Winston, Justin Bland, Tania Branquinho, Meryl Branch-

McTiernan, Pablo Castro Guijaro, Elena Conte, Ryan Cunningham, Liza Dunn, Alexa Fabrega, Alyssa Gerber, Kendra James, Sarah

Johnson, Eleni Karanicola, Kristen Karwacki, Christopher Korwell, Nikolaos Patsopoulos, Michelle Perez, Alexis Rourke, Sabrina Terry, Aga

Trojniak, Alexander Wolk.

Centro Gaspar Garcia de Direitos Humanos: Ana Paula Barretto, Renê Ivo Gonzalves, Luiz Kohara, Benedito Roberto Barbosa.

Movimento Sem Teto da Zona Noroeste, MOHAS, Movimento Sem Terra da Zona Oeste, Movimento de Defesa do Favelado, União das

Lutas de Cortiço, Movimento de Moradia do Centro, Garmic e Associação Conde de São Joaquim, Coopere-Centro, Coorpel, Comunidade

Metodista Povo de Rua, Refeitório Comunitário Penaforte, Movimento Nacional de População de Rua, Movimento Sem Terra Leste 1,

Frente da Luta por Moradia, Uniao de Moradores Municipaes (UMM), Rede Rua de Comunicacao.

-Introduction

São Paulo:

-Map of Sites Visited

-The Situation in the Street

-Informal Housing

-Squatting

-Public Housing

-Low-income Housing Downtown

-Senior Housing

-Affordable Rental/Rent Regulation

-Affordable Homeownership

-Coop Housing

New York City:

-Homelessness

-Informal Housing

-Squatting

-Public Housing

-Low-income Housing Downtown

-Senior Housing

-Rent Control

-Affordable Homeownership

-Coop Housing

Appendices

• Table of Contents

• The São Paulo/New York Workshop is the brainstorm of

Brazilian city planner Ana Paula Barretto and the Centro

Gaspar Garcia de Direitos Humanos of São Paulo. In

2008, Ana obtained her MCP at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn

NY, where I had been conducting international summer

workshops in Germany and Panama since 2000.

Stimulated by the advocates for participatory planning in

New York City, Ana wanted to share the broad-based

urban social movements in her own city with Pratt

planning and architecture students.

• Previous workshops were tasked to conduct a week-long

investigation and design charette to generate ideas for a

particular site or neighborhood that could be carried

forward by the host organizations. In Ana‟s conversations

with Luiz Kohara and René Gonzalves of the Centro, they

thought that “it would be interesting to do something more

clearly like an „exchange of experience‟”. They came with

this idea partly because of the short time that usually the

studios have and the difficulties of developing too much a

singular project. More importantly, it would be very

valuable for the Center learning how things are done in NY

as well as show and discuss how things are done in Sao

Paulo. I believe that this exchange would be very valuable

for the students as well. Certainly the themes should be

comparable in a way that „makes sense‟ in NY as well as

in São Paulo”.

• Over a year later, this idea came to fruition between March

13 and 20, 2010. The result was an intense, humbling,

and inspirational week exposed to the amazingly broad

and deep variety of people and groups in São Paulo

working with resident committees, homeless support

groups, elderly housing, and self-help housing groups.

E. Perry Winston

INTRODUCTION

The Popular-Based Housing Movement in Brazil

Brazil may currently have the most active, broad-based, and effective urban housing movement in the Western Hemisphere. Within Brazil, São Paulo was the scene of much of the early organizing efforts among the 28% of the city of 19 million that produced strong local coalitions of labor unions and favela committees that led to the União de Movimentos de Moradía (UMM).

This organization helped elect two progressive mayoral administrations: that of Luiza Erundina (1988-92), herself a housing rights activist, and of Marta Suplicy (2000 – 04). Both of them effected a broad set of reforms in housing policy that prioritized the improvement of conditions in favelas in place of removing them, and created administrative (the Secretariat for Housing & Urban Development -SEHAB) as well as funding vehicles for a variety of housing initiatives.

In turn, many members of the UMM were supporters of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the party that brought Luis Inacio Lula da Silva to power in 2003. This new federal government created new national policies and instruments, such as the creation of the Ministry of Cities, which is working put in action the principles included in the Statute of the City. This federal urban development law , passed in 2001after 13 years of discussion, regulates portions of the 1988 Constitution dealing with urban development. A key principal in this Statute is the “right to the city”, an idea first expressed by Henri Lefebvre (1996) and later by David Harvey (2003). As stated in the 2nd article of the Statute, the purpose of urban policy is:

To guarantee the right to sustainable cities, understood as the right to urban land, housing, environmental sanitation, urban infrastructure, transportation and public services, to work and leisure for current and future generations (Presidencia da Republica 2001).

As the areas of São Paulo where the above conditions exist are almost exclusively in the central districts, the popular movements have deduced the “right to the center.” With currently 30% of buildings in central São Paulo vacant, the UMM has organized illegal occupations to emphasize that, with the growing homeless population in the downtown area, these buildings are not fulfilling their “social use value” This concept is promoted to correct imbalances resulting from the over-emphasis on “exchange values” embedded in the modern urban economic system.

The UMM and related groups have tapped into a variety of municipal housing programs. In addition to the push to recycle these vacant downtown buildings as housing for low-income groups (morar no centro), there is funding for favela upgrading and land tenure in illegal subdivisions (lote legal); renovation and new recreational facilities in public housing estates (viver melhor); channeling of waterways to avoid landslides in favelas; rent vouchers; finance for the construction of new self-help, or mutirão, coop housing, Members of the UMM are members of the Municipal Housing Council and participate in decisions about how funding for these programs will be allotted in a fiscal year.

CENTRO GASPAR GARCIA DE DEREITOS HUMANOS

The Centro Gaspar Garcia de Direitos Humanos is a key player in the movement

for decent housing in São Paulo. Founded in 1988 by grassroots and religious

activists, it has as its mission to contribute to the improvement of the lives of

inhabitants of cortiços (slums), favelas (shanty towns), of homeless, and

catadores (collectors of recyclable materials). Concentrating on the center of

São Paulo, their early efforts were directed against abusive rents, violent

evictions, and towards creating space for the coexistence of the homeless and

catadores and the creation of organized movements of this population.

In the last decade, popular pressure has resulted in some advances in public

policy that promises an improvement in the living conditions among the low-

income population in the city center. At the same time, there has been

mobilization within some sectors opposed to the permanence of this population in

the city center. In this context, the Centro has worked for the strengthening of

the popular movement and the defense of rights.

To confront these challenges, the Center has organized itself into three primary

work groups: the Cortiço Program, the Program for the Homeless and

Catadores, and the Education, Information, and Documentation Program

(NEIDOC). Their common objective is to assist and strengthen popular

movements, with an emphasis on collective struggles, the formation of social

networks, and stimulation of consciousness about inequality in issues of gender .

The Centro worked with Ms. Barretto to involve a dozen of these grassroots

movements in the planning, organization, and hosting of this workshop. The

results of this intense, eye-opening, and inspiring week are summarized in the

following pages.

LOCATION OF SITES VISITED

Mutirao Vila PatrimonialJardim Miriam, Municipio da Diadema

Mutirao Vale das Flores

Mutirao Colinas D’ OesteJaragua

Mutirão Unidos Venceremos & Paolo FreireCidade da Tiradentes

Favela da Piscina

Favela do Sapo

Favela da Vila Prudente

Favela do Moinho

Favela do Pau Queimado

Favela Iguacu

Favela Vergueirinho

Cortico 01Rua Valdemar Dória, 210 (transitional shelter by HabiCentro)

Cortico 02 Rua Belém, 116 (renovated by HabiCentro)

Cortico 03

Rua Carlo Guimarães, 90 (44 new housing units) CDHU

Cortico 04

Cond. Joaquim Carlos, 76 – Belem, affordable condos

Cortico 05 Av. Ipiranga 1225, Former office building donated by the Federal

Govt‟. to convert it to 123 housing units.

Cortico 06 Rua Senador Feijó 126, Centro, 45 units subsidized rental

Cortico 07

Rua do Carmo 93, stalled development

Albergue Sítio das Alamedas

CRECI Rua Formosa, 215, below the Viaduto do Chá

Vila dos Idosos

Rua Carlos de Campos, 840

Penaforte Soup Kitchen Near Shopping Center Frei Caneca, Dinner and

discussion on conditons of homeless by the Movimento

Nacional da População de Rua and Rede Rua.

Coorpel_Catadores

Coopere Recycling Ctr.

Homelessness in the Center

Centro Gaspar Garcia

03 Urban Farm - Cidades sem Fome

01_Urban Farm - Vila dos Idosos

02_Urban Farm - Complexo Dova VerdeVergheirinho neighborhood