Number of households in São Paulo slums soars in the pandemic

From the top of a cliff on the east side of São Paulo, close to Aricanduva Avenue, bricklayer Marcelo Augusto Soares do Nascimento, 25, points to a large piece of land that for years received the irregular disposal of rubble. “This is where we get the material to build our houses,” he says. From up there you can see the remains of sofas, cabinets, tables and other decaying furniture.

Unemployed, Nascimento spent 2020 homeless, living on the street, and today is part of a community of 300 families. Irregular housing is just over a year old and is part of an unprecedented crisis caused by the deficiency in housing policies and the economic crisis that hit part of the population during the last few years of the pandemic.

Between 2019 and 2022, the capital of São Paulo gained 6,000 homes in slums, according to the municipal monitoring system, with 5,100 of these homes built between 2021 and 2022 alone. Today, there are a total of 1,739 communities and 397,054 homes. Since 2017, these numbers have maintained some stability.

Other important thermometers, such as the increase in eviction actions and in default on gas, electricity and water bills, help to measure this crisis in the state and in the country.

The São Paulo Court of Justice recorded an increase of almost 70% in eviction and repossession actions between 2020 and 2021 — jumping from 19,373 to 32,461.

Until the beginning of the pandemic, TJ was registering a progressive drop in the number of these actions.

What is helping to stop the massive expulsion of part of the population to irregular occupations or even to the streets of the country are injunctions from the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and a law passed by Congress, suspending evictions and evictions during the pandemic period.

In June of last year, Minister Luís Roberto Barroso decided to interrupt eviction orders or measures in the country for six months. In October, Congress passed a law with the same function. Bolsonaro had imposed a veto, which was overturned by parliamentarians. The Supreme then went on to determine new deadlines on her.

The latest decision by Minister Barroso determines that the rule will be valid until the 30th of this month, and its extinction could put more than 132 thousand families at risk, according to the magistrate himself in the document.

The number is from the Zero Eviction campaign, a national articulation that brings together more than one hundred organizations to act against forced evictions. According to the movement, that number has already grown to 142,000 now in June.

At the time, Barroso said that there would be no further extension of the term. According to the press office of the Supreme, the magistrate may review this position because of the high hospitalization rates for the coronavirus in the country, which adds up to more than 660,000 lives lost because of Covid-19.

In the period, even with the measures against eviction and occupations, there were loopholes that allowed the removal of 31,400 families from their homes and from the communities where they live, according to Despejo Zero.

São Paulo leads the ranking among the states with the most risks, with 45,000 families threatened with homelessness.

“The eviction crisis in Brazil is a serious human rights crisis,” says Jan Jarab, UN Human Rights Representative in South America.

“The decision of the Federal Supreme Court and the law passed by the Chamber of Deputies were important mechanisms to stop such violations during the Covid-19 pandemic”, it continues. “However, the situation remains critical, and it is now important to move forward and institutionalize public policies that meet the protection needs of populations that have become even more vulnerable.”

Between rent and food

Serasa does not compile data on non-payment of rent, but there is information on non-payment for gas, water and electricity services across the country. In March 2017, 17.75% of Brazilians defaulted on these accounts. This number grew and reached 23.21% in March this year.

Saleswoman Edileuza Maria Santana Timoteo, 49, lives in a squat on Rua Augusta, central São Paulo, and says she paid rent in a three-room house she shared with her husband and three children until last year.

The husband was the first to lose jobs after the restrictions announced in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, when commerce and various services were paralyzed by the quarantine. At the end of last year, the situation worsened, and they were unable to pay their rent for two months, were threatened with eviction and decided to leave the house.

Hunger had also affected the family’s reality. Edileuza says that there were months when her family members had to choose between paying the rent and buying food.

Immigrants make the group even larger. Venezuelan student Jesus Carlos Rivas, 23, shares a room with four other friends in the Augusta occupation and wants to take the Enem to continue his studies in the country. Today, he is unemployed. Saleswoman Jojana Maili, 40, who is visually impaired as a result of an act of violence she suffered in her country, when acids were thrown into her eyes, was also able to pay rent until last year. But she had to resort to homeless movements.

According to Benedito Barbosa, organizer of Zero Eviction and a lawyer for the São Paulo Housing Movement Union, the federal program Casa Verde e Amarela stopped serving families who earn up to one and a half minimum wages, “precisely at the moment when there is a reduction in the income of the Brazilian families”.

Wanted, the Ministry of Regional Development of the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL), says that in 2021 the milestone of more than 1 million housing units delivered to the population was reached. This number, however, includes works started in previous governments, in Minha Casa, Minha Vida.

To give some access to families with incomes of up to R$ 2,000, the federal government used as a ruse to release subsidies from the FGTS (Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço). In practice, the money allocated by the Union to the housing program only fell over time: from R$4.8 billion in 2019 to R$1.5 billion in 2021 and to R$1.1 billion this year.

The new subsidy amount increased between 12% and 21%, according to the location and population size of the municipality, informs the ministry.

Barbosa also warns of the absence of measures at the state level. “Doria [PSDB, ex-governador, sucedido por Rodrigo Garcia] presented the proposal to extinguish CDHU in the middle of the pandemic”, he says. He refers to the tax adjustment legislation signed by João Doria in 2020 and approved by the Legislative Assembly, but not put into practice, according to the press office of the Secretary of State of State Housing.

“The ministry develops several programs and actions to face the housing deficit aimed primarily at the needy population. Since 2019, 40,900 affordable housing has been delivered and another 28,500 are under construction through the Casa Paulista and CDHU programs, totaling Rs. $ 4.3 billion of investments”, informs a note from the state agency.

The City of São Paulo, through the Municipal Housing Department, reported that from 2017 to date, more than 33,000 homes have been delivered to the population of São Paulo, of which 19,500 directly by the municipality in partnership with the state and federal governments. .

He also mentions the Pode Entrada program, aimed at low-income people, with acquisitions through letters of credit and financing for families without proof of income or who do not have access to the banking system.

“The Secretariat has expanded the instruments of assistance to the vulnerable population to reduce the housing deficit, the objective is to lead this population to obtain definitive decent housing”, says the ministry.