Self-Managed Housing Production in Brazil
For five decades, organized social movements have been central actors in the struggle for better housing conditions, but also for the consolidation of self-managed housing programs. As housing movements’ goals and participation expanded from local neighbourhood to city scale to national movements, capable of taking part on more complex social and political articulations. From the pioneering self-help housing construction experiments in São Paulo in the early 1980’s, early 1990’s Programa de Mutirões (Self-management Housing Provision Program) to the recent Minha Casa Minha Vida Entidades (My Life My House Entities) federal program and Pode Entrar (Come In) municipal self-managed program. The partnership with militants, technicians and professionals, both from progressive administration and independent technical advisors, was central for the execution of the first projects, but most of all, for the conquest of fundamental improvements in national and local legislation and progressive housing public policies.
Brazilian self-managed experiences represent the improvement of the economic, social and political capacities of the popular sectors. In addition, self-management action empowers the community, qualifying its dialogue and preparing it for confrontations with public authorities
This paper proposes the analyses of São Paulo’s ongoing projects – 20 from the federal program and 27 from the municipal program – contributing to the discussion about participation and political organization in social housing practices.
The analysis of recent self-managed housing production in Brazil has the potential to offer alternative and higher quality ways to address the housing deficit and to make the right to the city and citizenship effective for the low-income population.