Skip to content
Click on cover to enlarge

          Facebook         Stumble        RSS

The settlement with the city eventually offered some relief. Mauricio moved the family into an apartment downtown, and Samara found an employer who provided free daycare. Sara was able to start attending school.

life on the edge

Opportunities for change are just as limited in São Paulo’s outer slums. What few routes for advancement exist are often dimly understood or difficult to pursue. Schools overflow to such an extent that in some areas children attend classes in four-hour shifts. The best jobs, meanwhile, require a long commute to the city centre.

As a result, youths tend to get trapped in destructive patterns. Jacqueline, shown directly above, became pregnant as a teenager. She bore the child, but eventually left it with the father and married another man.

Twenty-five-year-old Zé Foguete, shown at centre right, was abandoned by his mother when he was younger. He was heavily involved in crime for a time, but left that life after seeing many of his friends murdered. He now works in the community but, like many young adults on the outskirts, abuses cocaine and other drugs.

dona fia and donizete

Dona Fia, a woman in her late sixties, fled an abusive husband and sibling three decades ago, bringing her seven children from the country’s interior to São Paulo’s eastern periphery. Upon arrival, she remarried and had three more children. Her second husband eventually left, but before he did the couple built a small house on a good-sized plot she has since sold off to neighbours. One of her sons, Donizete, developed a severe drinking problem in his mid-thirties.

Cachaca (sugar cane liquor) is cheap and accessible in the slums — 50 cents a shot, half the price of a beer. Donizete spends his days wandering the streets looking for ways to supply his habit; when he is home, he is often impossible to deal with. Twice, the family has enlisted the help of an evangelical temple to get him into rehab,but both times he escaped before being admitted.

Carlos Cazalis is a regular contributor to the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Mexican weekly Día Siete.

Previous page | Next page
Subscribe Today Subscribe Today

» SIGN UP FOR THE WALRUS E-NEWSLETTER

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

Comment on this article


Will not be displayed on the site

Submit a comment online

Submit a letter to the Editor


    Cancel

The Walrus E-Newsletter

Online exclusives, events, offers:
get news of everything Walrus.


IN THE NEWS:
Society

Taking the Cure

Taking the Cure

John J. Verigin Sr, the longtime leader of the Russian Doukhobors in BC, has died. Read our feature on the Doukhobors here...

From the archives: September 2006

Iran’s Quiet Revolution

As the standoff with the United States heats up, Iranians are united on nuclear policy, but little else

THE WALRUS STRAW POLL