Government plans to complete format of the new Minha Casa, Minha Vida in February

Ministers of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) decided that, by February 15, the government should conclude the design of the reformulation of Minha Casa, Minha Vida.

The new format of the housing program will be presented to the National Congress in the form of a provisional measure – which will take effect as soon as it is published.

The text will extinguish the name Casa Verde e Amarela, created by Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to give the former president a social mark in the housing area. In exchange, Minha Casa, Minha Vida, whose name is associated with Lula, will be recreated.

The Ministry of Cities and members of the Civil House are still finalizing the new structure of the program. Despite using the old Minha Casa, Minha Vida as a model, government officials admit that adjustments are needed.

One of the novelties must be that, at President Lula’s request, the new developments in the program will have balconies for residents.

The government also wants to resume the delivery of Tier 1 houses, aimed at families with lower incomes. In addition, the income ranges of the program must be readjusted.

By creating Casa Verde e Amarela, the Bolsonaro government ended the conditions given to track 1 of the former PT brand program. In the former Minha Casa, Minha Vida, this segment was for families with a gross income of up to R$1,800 per month (value used in 2020) who could sign contracts with a subsidy of up to 90% of the value of the property, without interest.

There is still no decision on what the subsidy will be for this poorer range. A total of R$ 10 billion is planned for the housing program in the 2023 Budget.

According to the executive secretary of the Civil House, Miriam Belchior, it will not be necessary to increase this value for the government to take the new Minha Casa, Minha Vida off the ground.

In addition to Miriam, ministers Jader Barbalho Filho (Cities) and Rui Costa (Casa Civil) will participate in the discussions.

The group intends to present the draft of the MP to President Lula by February 15th. After that, the petista will be able to suggest changes.

Members of the Ministry of Cities also point out that there is the idea of ​​reinforcing the financing of housing in rural areas. Casa Verde e Amarela serves this area, but, according to these technicians, the proposal is to resume subsidies for this sector – in a model closer to that of before Bolsonaro.

Initially, the Planalto Palace predicted that Lula would travel to Bahia this Friday (20). This would be the landmark for the relaunch of the housing program.

However, the schedule was cancelled. According to government interlocutors, the postponement was due to the precarious situation of the housing units that would be inaugurated shortly after the act.

Lula was going to inaugurate a housing complex in Feira de Santana.

However, the more than 240 houses on the site, which were contracted during the government of former President Dilma Rousseff (PT), are not ready to be inhabited.

The situation is repeated in more than 2,600 homes across the country, representing 65% of the homes that are finished and have not been delivered, according to the Chief of Staff.

Minha Casa Minha Vida was replaced in 2020, in the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), by Casa Verde e Amarela, which did not take off. The program suffered significant budget reductions from year to year and removed its focus from track 1, aimed at the poorest families.

Brazil has a deficiency of 5.9 million homes, according to the diagnosis by the João Pinheiro Foundation for the year 2019, the most recent one available.

In this universe, there are about 1.5 million precarious homes, which include those improvised in tents or viaducts and those classified as rustic housing (without plaster or wattle and daub).