Another seven decades on, the figure is 11 million. Rapid growth has combined with the consequences of poor urban planning, military rule, and municipal corruption to cause deep instability. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme estimates that a third of the city’s inhabitants now live below the poverty line, and as the city’s economy begins to shift again — this time toward the service and technology sectors — São Paulo’s lower classes find themselves increasingly marginalized, taking refuge in ever more drastic living situations.
Some stay close to the centre, creating vertical slums in the thousands of abandoned buildings scattered throughout the city core, while more than two thirds of the populace lives in favelas on the outskirts, facing appalling sanitary conditions, overcrowded schools, and rampant crime.
On November 3, 2002, the Homeless Movement of Central São Paulo (mstc) helped 468 families occupy an abandoned clothes factory downtown. The twenty-two-storey Prestes Maia 911 building had been empty for seventeen years, serving as a hub for drug dealing and prostitution.
For four and a half years, inhabitants lived side by side in tiny apartments, lacking basic facilities and privacy. Communal problems tended to affect everyone, and though democratic procedures were put in place to deal with them, domestic violence, alcoholism, and theft were common. Police frequently threatened occupants with eviction, sometimes prompting demonstrations.
São Paulo’s government finally signed an agreement with the residents in February 2007, ending the occupation. Some were moved to communal projects on the city’s fringes, while most received rent assistance so they could find homes downtown.
samara and mauricio
Samara, thirty-one, has lived most of her life on city streets. At the time of the Prestes Maia occupation, she and her daughter, Sara (born as a result of a rape when Samara was twenty-five) had been sleeping on the street blocks away from the building. One of the mstc’s leaders found her and brought her in. There, she met Mauricio and had a second child.
By Samara’s third year in the building, the couple had lived on three different floors. Mauricio was often away, working long hours for a fast-food chain in the business district. Their relationship began to deteriorate, with Mauricio sometimes abusing Samara.
Comments (4 comments)
Naor Elimelech: This short documentary was made at Prestes Maia no. 911 months before occupants' victory over municipalities.
All 486 families, backed by MSTC - Sao Paulo Roofless Movement - were relocated into proper government housing schemes.
http://www.vimeo.com/user396816
Thanks,
Naor Elimelech. March 30, 2008 10:17 EST
Cazalis: Dear Naor,
I believe you need to make another trip/visit to Sao Paulo. First of all more than 468 families signed up to receive, as you say proper government housing, before the dis-occupation of the Prestes Maia, primarily because the MTSC informed all its movement to come to the building and sign up when the Ministry of Habitat appeared to finally settle a deal. The basement was so overcrowded they had people signing up until 5am, and still some of the official residents got excluded because they were out working. Mauricio mentioned in this story included.
The truth is that less than half of those that signed were living in the Prestes Maia. Second more than half of the families who opted to find a home within the central area of Sao Paulo were promised housing in six months and they are still waiting. The MTSC and city hall keep delaying their plans it seems until elections in October.
Every Tuesday the MTSC holds a meeting at their base and does nothing but attempt to lift the faith of the ex-residents just to keep them in line and not lose vote opportunities for the current mayor, Gilberto Kassab's possible candidacy. Meetings average less than 50 people.
On April 22 the city is actually supposed to release an additional six month rent subsidy to these families. Approximately USD $250.
Yes, a great number of families are with community housing in the periphery of Itaquera, but the distance is so long that for the average person it's still at least USD $5 a day just for transportation.
To summarize the dis-occupation of the Prestes Maia in my opinion was an internal political move from the leaders of the MTSC to obtain power allegiances within city hall. The situation has also debilitated not only the MTSC's power but many of the other homeless movements in the city who had created a significant power base with the sucess of the Prestes Maia movement. April 17, 2008 17:34 EST
Naor Elimelech: Dear Carlos,
This alarming yet sadly not surprising information is new to me. I have came to work with the Prestes Maia residents through the multiplicity of artists who occasionally organised art workshops therein.
Doing work in Brazil this past December, I remember talking to one of the MSTC coordinators who seemed to be satisfied with the state of the current re-housing scheme, which, as you mentioned, has been revealing itself as yet another politically motivated fallacy under the cover of a social welfare act.
I am back in Brazil on June and would actually be very interested in returning to some of the former occupants and perhaps do something which could shed more light on this so called successes of local social movements. Although the one's I am still in touch with are content with the flats they have received (albeit being 'Singapuras').
Are you currently located in Sao Paulo? Feel free to write to my mail. April 18, 2008 01:19 EST
Cazalis: Naor,
This is a very complex story with many political incentives and motivations inside the MTSC. Of course they have obtained housing for people and that's a good thing. Yet the disturbing thing is that no one that I knew of really looked in to the dirty side of all this story. City hall in Sao Paulo is no saint and the MTSC is corrupted but fighting a good cause, albeit using defenseless, poor and ignorant people, like all modern socio political movements -ad hoc
Like you, many of the artists/activists working in the building, found the romantic side of the battle was a fertile ground for expression. However, it disturbed me that on the final weeks of the evacuation all those people disappeared and did not come to see the final outcome, which as I say has had many layers in the process, including making a real count of who remained and who had been there for how long. April 22, 2008 14:52 EST