Programme de bourses "Jeunes Chercheurs"

RENTAL HOUSING: ALTERNATIVES AND CONSTRAINTS FOR SLUM DWELLERS IN BRAZIL

Although illegal land occupation is the first image of housing informality that comes to mind when thinking about slums, many issues regarding to how the poor currently access housing inside informal settlements remain unexplored. For many decades, squatter and self-help settlements represented the main access to urban land and housing for the poor in most of Latin-American countries, above all, in Brazil. In the last two decades, however, studies revealed that the aforementioned dynamic has changed and other social and physical forms of informality range from land and housing commercialization inside informal settlements: slums dwellers sale and rent dwellings and the amount of tenants is increasing at a fast pace among them.

This research is situated to the further understanding of the allocation of rental housing in slums. Very little is known on the mechanisms of accessing housing inside slums through rent and we assume the need to investigate it under an approach that interrogate the potentialities that rental housing embodies for slum dwellers. It is of major importance in the studies of urban poverty to recognize the capacity of this population to develop mechanisms to overcome their poverty conditions and take into account the wealth and the assets that they are able to produce. In this sense, the major questions which guide this thesis toward a better comprehension of the rationale involving the phenomenon are: a) Why slum dwellers rent and let out their dwellings and which factors underlie the increasing demand for rental housing inside slums in recent years? b) Which opportunities and/or limitations this phenomenon presents at the socioeconomic level for slum dwellers and how does it impact the production and quality of the built environment inside slums? c) What is the potential of rental housing as a partial alternative in slums and to what extent the practice of self-building could represent an asset in this sense? d) How does rental housing can be more effectively incorporated within the social housing policies in Brazil, especially in the frame of the federal law Statute of the City and its legal instruments to promote the regularization of slums?

The phenomenon will be addressed in a continuous and interactive dialogue between theory and empirical research. An important part of this investigation will confine itself to the study of the social and spatial dynamics existing at local level. The study will be supported by: 1) a quantitative approach to gather representative and standardized information on the functioning of informal rental market and on the socioeconomic profile of landlords and tenants; 2) a qualitative approach to apprehend particular aspects of the social relations and social organizations existing at local level and the spatial repercussions of phenomenon. The present study takes the Brazilian case as the focus for analysis and understandings on the structural factors involving the problematic of urban poverty, informality and access to housing. At local level, the complexity and specificity of the socioeconomic dynamics involving the informal rental housing will be addressed from a group of informal settlements in the city of Florianopolis, capital of Santa Catarina State – south Brazil.

The qualitative and quantitative recognition of this phenomenon is essential and the analyses resulting from this study will be equally relevant to the debate on how the state’s intervention can be more effective in the frame of social housing public policies in Brazil. The better comprehension of this phenomenon will also provide important information on the strategies of livelihood of individuals living in informal settlements and thus contribute to the understanding on the social reproduction of poverty and the mechanisms that the poor develop to overcome it.

1. On the top-left: the city of Florianopolis in South Brazil, and on the right in detal the conubation area of Florianopolis, comprising three other municipalities: Biguaçu, Palhoça and São José. (Lonardoni, 2009)

2. On the bottom-left: The massif of Morro da Cruz in Florianopolis, which is the major concentration of favelas in the conurbation area. On the righ, in detail, the precarious housing existing on the favela Serrinha, on of the various situaded in the massif. (City Hall Archives, 2009; INFOSOLO, 2005).

3. On the top: the team during the field work, getting acquainted with the favela end its residents. (INFOSOLO, 2006).

4. On the bottom: the different typologies of housing in the favelas. On the wall, the expression “vende-se” (for sale) attests for the increasing activity of the real estate in the informality realm (INFOSOLO, 2006; Lonardoni, 2009).

Contacts:

PhD Candidate

Fernanda Maria Lonardoni
PhD Student, EPFL-ENAC-INTER-LaSUr
EPFL AI-VP CO
CM 2 245 (Centre Midi)
Station 10
CH-1015 Lausanne
E-Mail: fernanda.lonardoni@epfl.ch
tél: [+41 21 69] 31421

Supervisor
Prof. Jean-Claude BOLAY, Ph.D
Directeur de la coopération
LASUR
EPFL AI-VP CO
CM 2 304 (Centre Midi)
Station 10
CH-1015 Lausanne
E-Mail: jean-claude.bolay@epfl.ch
tél: [+41 21 69] 33012,36012
fax: 0041(0)21/6936010

Research Partner in Brazil

Prof. Maria Inês Sugai, PhD
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Departamento de Arquitetura e Urbanismo.
Campus Universitário
Trindade
88040-900 - Florianopolis, SC - Brasil
E-Mail: misugai@uol.com.br
Telefone: (48) 37219393
Fax: (48) 37219550