The favelas of the Marinheiros Islands sit in the shadow of Porto Alegre’s skyscrapers.

Brazil
Rapid — and increasing — urbanization calls for new approaches

By Teresa K. Weaver

Brazil, by far the largest and most populous country in South America, is a nation of extremes, where spectacular scenery is a distraction from breathtaking social, political and economic disparities.

From 1970 to 1990, according to official statistics, some 30 million people migrated from rural areas to urban. Today, about 85 percent of the Brazilian population lives in cities that were completely unprepared for rapid urbanization.

Once these millions got to the cities, the lack of available, affordable land forced many into the infamous slums known as favelas or vilas. These informal settlements of shacks have survived several waves of government action, from outright expulsion to a combination of subsidies, stipends and new construction.

Brazil’s protracted transition from dictatorship to democracy, which began in the mid-1980s, has netted substantial reforms, including the adoption of laws that grant property rights to longtime squatters in many areas. Taking the long view, government leaders have begun to grasp the value of breaking the death-grip of poverty, acknowledging decent housing as a basic human right.

In the coastal city of Guaruja, Habitat for Humanity Brazil (in partnership with Dow Chemical, the federal bank Caixa and the municipality, among others) is wrapping up its first multi-unit build. On a plot of land that is only 1,915 square meters — less than half an acre — eight blocks of four housing units each will provide new homes for 32 families in desperate need of a safe place to live.

In addition to the housing units, the Guaruja project includes a pocket park, private parking, landscaping and bicycle racks — to accommodate the city’s main mode of transportation. Begun in September 2007, all 32 homes are scheduled to be completed by the end of September 2008.

“There was a little apprehension in the community,” says former Habitat project manager Andrea Holz Pftzenreuter, the architect who designed the compact, ecologically sound complex. “But everyone’s beginning to see what the improvements will mean for everybody.”

More and more, Habitat’s work in Brazil involves not only changing the hearts of people in the affected neighborhoods, but also transforming the social and political systems that have exacerbated the gross income inequities that plague this country.

“The pace of everything is picking up so much,” says Fernanda Baroni, coordinator of communications and marketing for Habitat Brazil. “We have more volunteers, more churches involved, and from now on, more multi-unit projects.”

Since it was established in 1992, Habitat Brazil and its affiliates have built nearly 3,100 homes. Numbers of need, though, are staggering.

Favelas increased by 22 percent between 1991 and 2002, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. If the current pace of growth continues, 55 million people will be living in favelas by the year 2020.

In Recife, a popular tourist attraction in southeastern Brazil, more than 40 percent of the population lives in substandard conditions. “In this city, you’re never more than 1 kilometer from a favela,” says Luis de la Mora, an urban sociologist at the University of Pernambuco for more than three decades. “That is why urbanists must preoccupy themselves with the issue of housing.”

Habitat for Humanity Brazil partnered with the city of Recife last year to build a community center for the neighboring favelas of Caranguejo and Tabaiares, which are separated by a dank canal. The bright white Maria Luzinete da Costa Center of Economic Solidary — named in honor of a local activist who died of rat urine poisoning — serves as the headquarters for Operacao Trabalho/Moradia Cidada (Work Operation/Citizen’s Housing), a pilot project that is small in scale but significant as a symbol of potential impact.

In this project, 20 students work half a day on a construction site, learning a trade, and then attend classes in Portuguese, math, citizenship and other subjects.“It’s no use improving the physical aspects of the home if people’s income-generating capacity does not improve,” says de la Mora. “Everything is interrelated.”