Thousands of families in São Paulo evicted over rent amid pandemic
SÃO PAULO — Jussara de Jesus never thought that her family would live in a shack.
But work as a hairdresser dried up for her after the coronavirus hit Brazilian metropolis São Paulo. She couldn’t afford $200 Cdn a month in rent for the small house where she and her three children lived. Three months ago, they were evicted.
They moved to Jardim Julieta, one of Brazil’s newest favelas, or shantytowns.
With more than 800 shacks of wood and plastic sheeting, there are already several thousand people living in what used to be a parking lot for trucks in one of the poorest areas of the city.
“We didn’t even have the means to build the shack. We came with some plastic sheets,” de Jesus said.
The growing number of evictions driven by Brazil’s COVID-19 pandemic is worsening an already serious housing problem in the country. Before the pandemic, local authorities counted more than 200,000 families waiting for adequate housing in São Paulo, a city of 12 million.
Human rights group LabCidade estimates more than 2,000 families have lost their homes in São Paulo state since March, with another 1,000 facing the same risk in upcoming weeks. It is a high figure for a state with 46 million residents, about the same population as Spain.
Raquel Rolnik, a special rapporteur on adequate housing for the United Nations and a co-ordinator for LabCidade, said similar evictions have happened all over Brazil.
“We will see many more people on the streets soon,” Rolnik told the Associated Press on the phone. “There is no public policy to handle these cases.”
Since the first wave of 35 residents built shacks in Jardim Julieta in midMarch, another 765 families joined and 200 are in line. Most were evicted from their homes during the ongoing pandemic, at a time local authorities said they should stay home.
Judges, mayors and, realtors and landlords have often ignored pleads to suspend rent due to the virus, despite requests from prosecutors and human rights groups. Congress passed a bill to address the issue in June, but it was vetoed by President Jair Bolsonaro. Not even moving into a favela assures residents will have shelter for now, since police can still force them out.
São Paulo state is the epicentre of pandemic in Brazil, with more than 20,000 fatalities of the country’s 82,000.
Karina Valdo, 38, was cleaning hospitals before she got pregnant with her third son, now eight months old. She and her husband depended on day labour to survive, but still managed to pay their $160 rent.
When the virus struck, she sold many of her household appliances to keep her one-bedroom house.
But that was not enough to persuade her landlord to suspend her payments.
“If you don’t pay, you go to the streets,” she said.
De Jesus, Valdo and their neighbours, who often share meals without any regard for social distancing, are constantly worried about the police. Officers have told them they must leave by Aug. 8. Prosecutors and activists are trying to block that move in court.
Many residents of Jardim Julieta were evicted from another favela that was dismantled by police on June 16 after a judge’s decision to return the land to its owner. São Paulo city hall said it offered shelter to the hundreds of affected families on the east edge of the city.
Nearly 30,000 families get a $110 subsidy from the city São Paulo for rent, but experts consider that amount too small. Brazil’s far-right administration has cut federal investment in housing programs.