As previously reported on RioOnWatch in an article looking at last year’s London Games, mass displacement of the poor is a trend replicated in every recent Olympic city. Here, anthropologist Tarey Milton looks into the public housing complexes demolished for the 1996 Atlanta Games and discovers that though the communities were literally destroyed, former residents are keeping the memory of their former communities alive.

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On February 27, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia, the implosion of one of the last public housing complexes took place amongst an enthusiastic crowd of Georgia Tech students, families and public officials. At first glance, there seemed to be an absence of people that used to live in the Roosevelt Public Housing complex. A student seated next to me inquired of the whereabouts of the former residents and I informed her that they had been dispersed throughout the city as well as various counties and in some cases other states. Suddenly there was a loud boom and the building fell in a matter of seconds.

Observing the reaction of the crowd, I noticed two senior women who did not share the same enthusiasm as the crowd. I approached them and shared a conversation regarding the efficiency of the demolition and discovered that both women were former residents of the housing facility. A look of absence was displayed on each of their faces as if there was the loss of a loved one. One of the women told me she had lived in the Roosevelt housing complex for 23 years. She had never heard of someone asking you to leave your home after paying rent on time for all those years. I asked her if she was comfortable in her new neighborhood in the upscale Atlantic Station community. She replied that it’d been one year and she wasn’t happy because the friendships shared in the housing communities were no longer available. While walking to her destination she said she hadn’t seen any of the other former residents at the demolition, probably because it was too painful to watch or they must have moved on.

Since 1995 Atlanta has been demolishing all its public housing facilities and replacing them with mixed income communities. Based on current Atlanta public housing research, I explore how residents of previous public housing communities choose to memorialize their former neighborhoods through social gatherings, personal narratives and social networks.

Memorialization in a Public Space

On September 11, 2010 at English Park, a crowd of three generations of former residents of the Bankhead Courts public housing communities gathered to memorialize their former neighborhood. The demolition of the Bankhead and Hollywood Courts communities in 2011 marked the end of not only two major housing complexes in Atlanta but also a neighborhood-established holiday celebration that took place each year. The yearly celebration was an opportunity for current and past residents to introduce local musicians or artists, recall past memories and strengthen neighborhood ties through cookouts and sporting events. After former residents had been displaced throughout the state, they returned to their neighborhoods to commemorate their former residence at local parks, continuing the community holiday. Hollywood Courts Day was held on May 9, 2010 at Collier Park. The social gathering assembled natives of a once vibrant community to reestablish bonds as well as mourn the loss of the fallen housing complex. The shift from a neighborhood site to a public space didn’t stop the former residents’ traditional celebration but instead enhanced the notion of community cohesiveness in a time of displacement taking place throughout the city.

Social Network Commemorative

As a counterpart to obituaries or memorial services, web-based memorials through social networks have become living memorials in remembrance of Atlanta’s public housing facilities. Web pages have been created in the name of Bankhead Courts, Hollywood Courts, and Bowen Homes to allow past residents to post messages, pictures and contribute comments on discussion boards. Observations of the sites have displayed a uniformity of expressive thoughts commemorating the eradication of a social structure that for former inhabitants established human agency. Online eulogy contributions have included testimonials such as:

i miss u hollywood ct (tear)

rip hollywood court

I miss bankhead that was my home i grow up there all my friends was i stayed there thr 98 to 2000 i miss yall very much Rip bankhead courts.

man r.i.p bowen u know the bricks will neva be forgotten always remembered

Virtual memorials were initiated through discussion boards to recall meaningful events in communities over the decades. Topics prompted discussions regarding growing up in Public Housing the 1970s to 2009. Memories of talent shows, summer camps, school functions and lost loved ones filled conversations that create a long-standing record for coming generations.

Public Memorial

In June 2010, Atlanta Housing Authorities were in the process of bulldozing the Bowen Homes public housing complex. As I stood in front of the heavily fenced property I noticed three EMT specialists fixated on the collapse of various buildings. I asked them if Bowen was a community that was serviced from time to time. The technicians told me of various calls about life-threatening injuries or illnesses they’d responded to, sometimes on a weekly basis. When I asked their opinion on the demolition of the housing complex, they were in agreement that it was time for a change but the memories of servicing the neighborhood are everlasting.

Numerous social science research projects are being carried out that look at America’s eradication of public housing, each social scientist offering a voice to people who are marginalized through polices geared toward urban development. The objective of the HOPE VI policy is to deconcentrate poverty in low socioeconomic neighborhoods through relocation. However my current research suggests that former residents are being displaced into social exclusion leaving them to memorialize a proverbial community. They continue to have social gatherings at public parks and cookouts, hold talent shows, organize artist development workshops and reproduce memories from their lost neighborhood. It brings into question whether the policy is deconcentrating poverty or communities?

Tarey Milton is an anthropologist at the University of Florida. 

Spending on health and sanitation, both at the federal and municipal level, have been the most effective in reducing poverty in Brazil in recent years, reveals research by the Luiz de Queiroz College for Agriculture (Esalq) of the University of São Paulo, in Piracicaba. This is followed by state level spending on both education and culture, and federal social security and welfare assistance. The study was conducted by the economist Martha Hanae Hiromoto, as part of her master’s dissertation in Applied Economics, supported by Professor Ana Lúcia Kassouf from the Department of Economics, Administration and Sociology at Esalq.

The research analyzed the effects of social expenditure to counter poverty within three governmental levels (federal, state and municipal), using data from the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Institute for Research in Applied Economics (Ipea) and the Treasury, amongst others. The type of poverty considered was limited to that of insufficient income. As such, the assessment of poverty calculated by Ipea was used. “The estimated values differ in each state of the country. As a reference, the poverty line calculated for the metropolitan region of São Paulo, in 2009, equates to 0.48 minimum monthly salaries,” states Martha.

Total government social spending adds up to around R$800 billion in 2009 (US$400 billion), nearly 28% of Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). “To analyze the effect of the social spending budget by function within the three governmental levels, we took into account social spending in accordance with its origin, considering social security and welfare, health and sanitation, education and culture, work, housing and urban planning, and at the state and municipal level we also included investment,” says the economist.

The analysis was split into two parts, the first involving a range of state data covering some twenty years (1987–2009). Next, as a means to better understand the effect of state level expenditures on poverty reduction, an analysis of the effect of expenditure by each state, including their specific characteristics and consideration of binary interaction of stats in terms of their per capita spending was added. Furthermore, demographic data were included, looking at population growth and level of education. The second assessment was based on municipal data from the years 1991, 2000 and 2010.

Budgets for Social Spending

The study, which was based on bibliographic research stemming from Brazil and other countries such as China and India, demonstrated that the total resources at the federal level for social budgeting selected for this analysis grew from 4% in 1987 to 14% of GDP in 2009, coming to a total of R$432 billion. Within the same period, state budgets increased from 4% to 6% of GDP, totalling R$193 billion. Finally, the capacity of municipal level budgeting selected from 2010 was R$212 billion (8% GDP). “Thus, one can help understand how to focus future spending or even find ways to improve the efficacy of spending in areas which have been less effective,” highlights Martha.

The main results show that spending on health and sanitation at both the federal and municipal levels were, in accordance with the analysis, the most effective in reducing poverty. Expenditure on state education and culture, and federal social security and welfare assistance follow.

“Federal spending, when considering the entire data set, is the most effective in reducing poverty. However, federal social security and welfare assistance did not come out as the most effective,” states Martha. “Welfare expenditure is poorly focused to the extent that the majority of it ends up in the public sector pension scheme and is not directed towards the part of the population most in need, as has been demonstrated in other studies.”

According to the economist, another important point is that the specific characteristics of each state can influence the effect of their social spending to reduce poverty. “Wealthier states tend to have better results in terms of their spending on poverty than poorer states. Better regional socio-economic conditions contribute to improving the effect of social spending in battling poverty,” she concludes.

Barrão confides that eight years ago, his financial and family situation took a turn for the worse. He explains: “One day, my wife left to buy cleaning supplies and never came back. I was left alone, raising the four kids.”

Each day, he gets up before 5am, takes his boat out to fish for a few hours, then docks back at home to make sure his fourteen-year-old daughter Sara is fed and ready for school. His older sons, Matheus, 17, and Lucas, 18, head to work shortly thereafter, while his fifteen-year-old, Tiago, helps him at home. Together, they prepare and freeze the fish, clean dishes and clothes, and cook dinner. Raising four kids on his own has been tough for Barrão. He tries to make me understand, “I fish to be able to survive.”

Because of the location of his house at the edge of Jacarepaguá Lagoon, Barrão is able to store his boats in the water and easily fish from his own property. If his house were removed, as the City government plans for the homes of Vila Autódromo, he would lose everything. Living in Parque Carioca, the resettlement housing development to which the City has planned to move Vila Autódromo residents, Barrão would not have access to water for fishing, nor would he be able to store his boats and work materials on his property, as he does now. The City government has passed Barrão’s house many times, extolling the benefits of the public housing currently under construction and attempting to hand him shiny pamphlets with pictures of pristine apartments and waterslides. But Barrão refuses to let them into his home. He explains emphatically, “I don’t pay them any attention! They pass by here but I don’t talk to them.”

When asked what he thinks of the City government’s proposed removals, Barrão raises his voice, “It’s absurd! No one wants an apartment of any kind, not even if it were in Copacabana! I want to stay here; it’s wonderful to live here. [If they were to] put me in a place far from the water…” The pain and exasperation visible in his tightened jaw finish his sentence for him.

When pressed to imagine life after hypothetical removal, he changes the subject instead, preferring to talk about the types of fish he catches rather than the life he refuses to imagine. A similar response can be found among many residents facing removal. It is as if simply thinking about removal will make it come to pass; and by not imagining the possibility of removal, Barrão and other Vila Autódromo residents are participating in their own form of resistance. He sighs, “I want to stay here. It’s too wonderful to leave.”

This is the second story in the series Lives Cannot be Replaced in Public Housing.

“The discourse from the state and from the commercial media [surrounding pacification] is a big lie,” explained Gizele Martins, coordinator and journalist at Maré’s 13-year-old community newspaper O Cidadão. Organized by the newspaper, the debate aimed to bring together favela residents from across the city to exchange experiences regarding the UPPs and to be “protagonists in their own realities.” The discussion raised broader questions about the nature of citizenship and the process of gentrification in Rio de Janeiro.

The first of four speakers, Francisco Marcelo, a Maré resident with a Masters in Education, expressed firm opposition to the UPPs because, in his words, there cannot exist two different security policies in the city. In Leblon and Ipanema, it would be unthinkable for the police to arbitrarily enter private homes, destroy personal property, or use violence against residents in the name of “public safety.” Gizele reiterated, “Why are they invading our homes, our spaces? And not in other parts of the city?”

Marcelo noted that during the UPP installation, the state hoists a flag to show “dominion over the territory,” and disseminates that it has brought peace, security, and citizenship to the favela. “I don’t understand this,” he said. “The UPP comes to guarantee our right to the territory?… Our right to finally be a complete citizen?”

Repper Fiell, a hip-hop singer and community activist of Santa Marta, crossed off the word “pacification” on the chalkboard and replaced it with the word “militarization,” arguing that the UPP security project is not one of peace and integration, but rather, one that perpetuates old systems of violence and domination while undermining possibilities for collective action.

Marcelo did acknowledge several benefits of the Pacifying Police Units, such as minimizing the ostentatious presence of weapons and drugs, and eventually decreasing the shootouts and deaths that regularly occur in Maré. “This is very good; I cannot be against this,” he explained. However, Repper Fiell challenged that this alone should not be the standard for success after five years of UPP presence in Santa Marta. “Great! Things improved, my son can run in the streets without shootings,” he said. “But this is his right as a citizen! This should not be a favor [from the government].”

Several speakers argued that police pacification was not accompanied by the promised investments in social programs and infrastructure upgrades. Cilene Vieira, graduate in Social Work and resident of City of God, stated that the UPP Social program, intended to bring in the missing public services beyond security, “leaves much to be desired” both in terms of project implementation and with regard to resident participation. André Constantine, a resident of Babilônia and organizer of the Favela Não Se Cala movement, described favelas with huge rats and open sewage systems years after UPP arrival. Repper Fiell exclaimed that the billions of reais supposedly invested in pacification have only resulted in “lack of citizenship” and “social and cultural control.” He cited Resolution 013, which prohibits parties and events in pacified communities.

The debate raised questions about quality of life measurements in the favelas; several speakers pointed to the absurdity of painting the fronts of houses while neglecting public health and education. Repper Fiell argued that quality of life has actually worsened in terms of higher living costs associated with UPP-controlled favelas, which do not align with residents’ salaries (e.g. instead of fixed rate electricity bills, some residents stated they received bills as high as R$900 per month).

Speakers also stated that the UPPs are linked to a broader project which effectively “commodifies and eliticizes” the city of Rio de Janeiro. André argued that the security project seeks to “integrate” the urban poor through material consumption, or expel them through gentrification or forced evictions.

Repper Fiell argued that the authorities are engaged in a project of conflating “citizenship” with “consumption,” and that it is easy for favela residents to confuse their “rights” to purchase goods for their human rights. In his and André’s views, the UPP is a protagonist in this process of big business entering to “exploit the favela… [and make it] another space to profit.” The UPP’s role in raising property values both inside pacified communities and in the surrounding neighborhoods was also cited.

Beyond criticisms, the discussion covered possibilities for political action as well. Repper Fiell showed the pamphlets he and others distributed in Santa Marta to nearly 2,000 homes explaining to residents their rights and duties in relation to the police, a project which significantly reduced police violations. He playfully noted that if the police were really there to “pacify” and “create citizens,” they would have helped facilitate the distribution of these pamphlets themselves. Instead, they arrested him.

Various participants applauded the event for creating a space explicitly for the voices of favela residents, given the absence of such perspectives in many discussions of pacification throughout the city. “We need to occupy more of these spaces,” André said of universities, forums, and public hearings. He criticized the paradigm in which academic researchers come into the favela and use residents’ stories–“I am like a rat in a laboratory”—but then residents never see the work that is produced and the benefits remain outside the community. He said: “Favela residents have to speak for favela residents, and must be the protagonists of these stories.”

O Cidadão is planning to follow up this debate with further events in different locations in Maré on other important favela issues, where residents are encouraged to participate and debate the city and their community.

The financial assistance given to families living in extreme poverty through the program Bolsa Família (“Family Stipend”) does not deter them from searching for work, or from becoming entrepreneurs themselves. The conclusion comes from the national Research Institute for Applied Economics (Ipea), after an analysis of Brazilian micro-entrepreneurship. “The Bolsa Família does not produce an effect of laziness or apathy in its recipients. The majority of beneficiaries being entrepreneurs with formalized businesses is proof of that,” says Rafael Moreira.

Moreira is one of the researchers focusing on the individual microentrepreneur–a person who is self-employed and registers himself as a small business owner with a maximum annual revenue of R$60,000. This type of entrepreneur will employ at most one worker who receives around the minimum wage.

The Radar report, released May 7th by Ipea, states that 7% of individual micro-entrepreneurs are also beneficiaries of Bolsa Família. Furthermore, self-employed workers, whether their activity is formal or not, make up 38% of the program’s target audience. “In general, Bolsa Família has not reduced the workforce,” guaranteed Moreira.

According to another collaborator on the study, Mauro Oddo, micro-businesses represent 99% of businesses in Brazil and are responsible for 51% of all existing jobs. “This shows the country will not develop while the differences between the monetary and quantitative realities are so great. Small businesses play a large role in the economy. You cannot understand the country without understanding these small businesses,” argued the researcher.

Half the informal workers in Brazil have formalized their business

The Minister of the Strategic Affairs Secretariat (SAE) to the President of Brazil, and president of Ipea, Marcelo Neri, says that among the most relevant conclusions from the Radar report is the fact that half of informal workers, such as street vendors, have formalized their businesses. “This is a surprising and interesting fact. Nobody would have expected this ten years ago,” he said. “Nowadays we understand that (individual) workers often constitute small businesses. Generally speaking, they are capitalists without capital.”

According to the study presented by researcher João de Oliveira–on the increase in formal employment–half of individual business-owners began in the informal sector. In addition, half of the group (or one quarter of the total) began their businesses “not because of an opportunity, but out of necessity, after losing a job.”

Oliveira explains that the individual micro-entrepreneur has a lower level of education (49.4% have completed high school) and are in the lowest income category. He estimates that there are about three million of these workers contributing to the Brazilian economy. Furthermore, there are another 6.12 million small businesses and micro-businesses in the country.

Three short documentaries–’Marked Homes,’ ‘Me, Favela’ and ‘Realengo, Letting Off Steam’–each give an important insight into the different aspects and stages of these processes currently underway in Rio and how they are affecting the people and communities involved. With English subtitles by RioOnWatch*, these videos are essential viewing for an understanding of how eviction, gentrification and displacement are currently reshaping Rio and perpetuating the city’s world-famous inequality and historic marginalization of the poor.

*Please make sure you turn Captions “on” for “English.”

Marked Homes

Combining archive footage and interviews with current residents of Providência, Marked Homes looks at the forced eviction of a third of Brazil’s first favela for the installation of a cable car. Featuring photographer and community activist Maurício Hora, who co-wrote last year’s New York Times op-ed ‘In the Name of Future, Rio is destroying its past‘ with CatComm’s Theresa Williamson, and a star turn by vocal resident Márcia Regina de Deus, Marked Homes contextualises the current wave of evictions in Providência within the Rio government’s historic policies and attitudes towards favela development: “destroy to rebuild.”

Me, Favela

Featuring the voices of community leaders, social workers and a tourist, this short film looks at the threat of gentrification in Babilônia, a well situated South Zone favela overlooking the beachside neighborhood Leme with stunning views of Copacabana’s curved shore. Residents question the policy of the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) and the subsequent entrance of tourists and middle-class buyers, and express concern over what this entrance will mean for community life in the favela.

Realengo, Letting off Steam

Residents evicted from favelas across the city are being offered replacement housing in newly constructed Minha Casa, Minha Vida apartment blocks in Rio’s far West Zone. This film relates the experiences of residents relocated to one such condominium in the West Zone neighborhood Realengo. Describing the difficulties of the move and new location, from poor infrastructure to severe restrictions on property use, residents outline some of the key flaws in Rio’s current public housing, eviction and relocation policy.

What is even more impressive than the food, though, is Ana Maria dos Santos’ formidable business acumen. Holding many jobs in her life, Ana Maria started her career in food service by making take out meals for people on the go. The customers quickly caught on, and she was soon practically forced to open as a sit-down restaurant. Now, Ana Maria explains that only about five percent of her clientele live in the community. For a typical favela restaurant, that is unheard of. The reason? Cable car construction workers, building the station around the corner caught on and spread the word.

Not long after opening, Ms. dos Santos signed a contract with Hécio Gomes Engineering to supply six hundred meals a day. This was made possible by legalizing her business (i.e. registering with the government). However, the city cancelled the construction contract with Hécio Gomes, which cancelled the catering contract as well, only to replace Ana Maria with outside suppliers. What at first seems like a low blow gets worse. Just before her contract was cancelled, Ana Maria took out a R$60,000 loan to buy the upstairs area of her restaurant’s building for a spacious dining room with a beautiful view of Rio’s North Zone, something Hécio Gomes encouraged her to do so their workers would have a place to eat.

The loan made complete sense. Supplying six hundred meals a day would mean a quick return on her investment. This was the perfect moment for expansion, and the municipal government, the entity supposedly most encouraging economic development, left her out to dry.

Now, Ana Maria, who has already shown herself as a sharp businesswoman, is in danger of closing her restaurant. “It is just so hard to make money when you have none to begin with,” she explains. Freed from the debt, Ana Maria could begin some of her plans for improvement and expansion. At this point, she can barely cover interest and bills, hurting her even more financially. RioOnWatch originally covered Ana Maria’s story last November, about four months after the contract fell through. Since then, little has changed besides bills piling up and the possibility of closing becoming more iminent.

Thankfully, there is hope yet. Ana Maria is in desperate need of a microloan, one based on solidarity lending. This concept, first introduced by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, uses the power of social pressure and the responsibility of women to guarantee loan repayment. Instead of collateral and credit scores, women form lending groups. One member at a time takes out a loan. The first loan must be paid back in order for the next member to borrow. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the borrower to ensure others may borrow as well, and it is the responsibility of the group to support a struggling member. With a fair microloan, she could quickly and easily turn her business around in spite of having bad credit. She would use the money to pay bills and cover the debt of her cancerous loan. Once this is done, “I can start fresh. The business was doing great until all this happened to me… I paid off my first loan in three months.” Ana Maria is currently in the process of organizing a solidarity group with other female business owners in the community. They, however, are still in need of funding.

Pensão Sabor de Ana’s was planning to add a snack stand in the city’s revitalized port area as well as improvements to her restaurant such as roof and bathroom repairs. Given the chance, the business could take serious advantage of the Decade of Sports and the growing tourism in Providência, but unfortunately as of right now, Ms. dos Santos may be unjustly forced to watch from the sideline.

Please show support for Ana Maria by simply liking her restaurant’s Facebook page.

Does citizenship have a post code? This question may seem absurd for some, yet spot-on for others, and it is what favela residents are repeatedly asking about state powers.

Maré, a group of favelas situated between the Avenida Brasil and Linha Vermelha, two main highways in Rio’s North Zone, has been the target of six police operations in the past month. Residents are experiencing what they call “Pre-UPP Syndrome”, or TPP (Portuguese acronym).

Last Thursday May 2nd, residents of the favelas Parque União and Nova Holanda faced yet another operation, in which BOPE, the Shock Battalion, BAC (dogs unit) and GAM (air support unit) employed spectacle and force to seize three firearms (one calibre .45 and two 9mm handguns), ammunition, drugs (167 rocks of crack, 280 tubes of cocaine, 300 grams of white power, 410 bags of marijuana, 37 blocks of marijuana, approximately 1kg each) and R$381 in cash.

This unremarkable result, disproportionate to the force used in the operation, was achieved through the violation of citizens’ rights.

Such tactics have long been criticised, yet they continue to be used, revealing the unequal reach of the democratic state of law. In an attempt to prevent this now commonplace situation, civil society organisations and residents associations joined forces to confront the state’s violent practices, with the support of Amnesty International.

About 50,000 information packs have been distributed to residents in Maré to ensure they know their rights if they are approached by police officers – in the street or at home. As well as advice on how to avoid police abuse, the packs include signs for people to stick on their doors, with the caption, “We know our rights! Do not enter this house without respecting the law.” At the time the campaign was launched, a ridiculous article in the Globo newspaper even said that the campaign “makes the police’s job difficult.”

Those without rights

“What have I lost? What’s the value of the things I have lost? It’s the value of a life of work and my dignity. That is the price.” Bira Carvalho, who has lived in the Nova Holanda favela for 40 years, was devastated when he arrived home to find his house had been broken into by the police. “They destroyed everything in my house,” he explained.

Bira is a well-known photographer. He was the winner of the “Making a Difference Prize” (Prêmio Faz a Diferença, together with the Imagens do Povo team), and has published books. “I will keep my head up, but if I were the governor I would be ashamed,” he said, as he prepared himself to denounce the abuses.

The photographer has participated in many exhibitions, including “Olhar Cúmplice” at Caixa Cultural in Rio de Janeiro; “Sport in the favela” at the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro (both of which were also shown in the Palácio do Planalto, the government’s palace in Brasilia in 2008); “MostraBelonging: an inside story from Rio´s favelas” at Canning House in London in 2007; and a multi-media show at Recife State Museum in 2011.

Illegality

The same happened to public school teacher, Bruno Paixão, who arrived home to find his house turned upside down. According to article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution, “the home is the inviolable refuge of the individual, and no one may enter therein without the consent of the dweller, except in the event of an offense being committed or disaster, or to give help, or, during the day, by court order”, yet during police operations it is not uncommon for this to be violated, as officers, under orders from their superiors, enter people’s homes during any time and in any situation, often justifying it through “collective warrant for search and arrest.”

“A search warrant must specify the house, its number, everything described and distinguished. There cannot be a general and vague warrant to enter an undetermined number of people’s houses. That is illegal. Can you imagine that happening in a luxury condominium? The prospect is unimaginable, isn’t it? Meanwhile, that is what happens in poor neighbourhoods. To paraphrase Adorno, the state acts arbitrarily with those who have no choice,” explains Patrick Mariano Gomes, Master in Law, State and Constitution, and member of the National Network of Popular Lawyers (RENAP).

According to Guilherme Nucci, in his book The Code of Criminal Procedure, a legal warrant must be correct and specific. “An essential consequence of the constitutional principals, which protect private property, as well as the individual’s private life and integrity, should be that search and arrest warrants are issued by a magistrate, that they have clear objectives, and are for specified suspected persons. Generic judicial orders that give agents of authority freedom of choice and options of which places to invade and search cannot be permitted,“ he describes.

For the law expert, use of collective warrants, without specific details of the homes to be searched, is an abuse of authority by both the issuer and the executer of an indiscriminate warrant. “The law demands concrete reasons for someone’s house to be violated and for body searches to be carried out, not permitting generic orders which give broad access anywhere. In exceptional cases, a warrant for an undetermined search may be issued, but this must have a specified aim or place. An example of this would be a report, based on previously collected details, that there was evidence of a crime inside a house on road X, at number Y, though the resident was unknown. In this case, the police could investigate the house, without the names of the inhabitants, though having specified the property. Vice-versa, they could know the name of the person, though not exactly where they live.”

Bira and Bruno’s houses were both broken into, which would only be legal in the case of a flagrante delito–catching a crime as it happens–or to save someone from a disaster or a fire.

A Press Release from BOPE

The Special Operations Battalion (BOPE) began a Military Policy Inquiry on Thursday afternoon, May 2nd, to investigate the circumstances in which the possessions of photographer Bira Carvalho were rifled through and destroyed. Residents sent the report to the 22nd Military Police Battalion (Maré) and immediately brought to the attention of the BOPE commander. Nearly 300 Special Operations officers participated in the operation.

In communication with the Battalion’s Press Officer, I was informed that BOPE did not have a warrant.

UPDATE: Since this article was published, Maré residents were recieved by Rio State Assembly’s Human Rights Commission, the Civil Police have launched an investigation and the Public Defendor’s Office has filed a lawsuit calling for compensation.

Irenaldo, President of the Pica-Pau Residents' Association, strolls behind a cyclist on one of Pica-Pau's main streets.

Irenaldo Honório da Silva, president of the Pica-Pau Residents’ Association, is at a loss. The small favela where he has led community organizing efforts for over twenty years, slightly north of Maré along Avenida Brasil, has in the past eighteen months witnessed robust commitments to what will be the first large-scale public upgrades in its history, those from the municipal Morar Carioca program. Teams of architects, technical surveyors, and social scientists have visited, noting the locations of abandoned buildings that could be converted into schools and health centers and asking residents what they envision for the community to be better served. The original deadline for the construction plans to be finalized was mid-2012 for Pica-Pau and 88 other favelas across the city. In May 2013, none of these favelas have drawings finalized, and surveying for the 129 other favelas scheduled to have plans finalized by the end of 2013 has not begun.

Without public investment for years, Pica-Pau has instead organized grassroots improvements to its public spaces such as these tire tree planters.

When Pica-Pau was selected for Morar Carioca in 2011, Irenaldo was told that it was because the North Zone community, sandwiched between the Ciadade Alta housing project and a mucky stretch of the Irajá River, had for so long existed outside the reach of public resources. (This fact has by no means muffled grassroots improvements in the community; one example is the car-tires-turned-tree-planters linining the river.) Despite this, Irenaldo is having difficulty getting reliable information from the city government about when–and if–the community will receive upgrades at all.

Irenaldo has participated in leadership training for sustainable development policies, in preparation to work with government investments on this issue, since the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992. This is some of the literature he's collected.

Pica-Pau’s Timeline as a Phase II Morar Carioca Site

In July 2010, Rio mayor Eduardo Paes announced the city plan to “urbanize all the favelas in Rio by 2020,” by way of Morar Carioca, as part of Rio’s Olympic Legacy. In October 2012, the guidelines for the Morar Carioca program were signed into City Decree with a guarantee of the right to “participation of organized society…in all stages of Morar Carioca through assemblies and meetings in the communities” and through the “presentation of works and debates open to the participation of civil society and citizens.”

In order to meet its obligation to guarantee community participation (which was not done in the dozens of communities that have received unparticipatory interventions retroactively labeled ’Morar Carioca Phase I’) the City government contracted the nonprofit iBase, which works to promote “active citizenship,” conducting surveys and focus groups in communities to incorporate resident perspectives and desires into designs.

Signs such as this announced the arrival of Morar Carioca in the Group 16 favelas: Bom Jardim de Cordovil, Brás de Pina, Cordovil (of which Pica-Pau is part), Parque CHP, Parque Proletário de Cordovil, Ponto Chique, and Serra Pelada.

Participatory upgrades are planned for 218 favelas as part of the authentic Morar Carioca program, also called “Phase II” of Morar Carioca. Pica-Pau’s group–Group 16, which includes the rest of Cordovil and Brás de Pina–was one of the eleven groups chosen for the first round of funding, surveying, and construction. iBase was contracted to conduct participatory surveys for Pica-Pau on April 27, 2011. Morar Carioca signs were erected throughout the community. Through mid- to late-2012, the Group 16 architecture firm, Arquos, which had in the past conducted favela upgrades in nearby Penha, surveyed the area with the help of an engineering team, and iBase conducted participatory workshops.

Suddenly, in January 2013, iBase staffers stopped doing their door-to-door survey work. The following month, the Morar Carioca signs were taken down from Pica-Pau.

Maria Eugenia Carmo, representing Morar Carioca on behalf of the city government, met with leaders of Group 16 favelas on March 9.

At the beginning of March, confused about what was going on, representatives from the Residents’ Associations of Brás de Pina, Adivinea/Parque Proletário de Cordovil, and Pica-Pau, requested a meeting with the city government. On March 9, Maria Eugenia Carmo, who had been responsible for surveying the community for home and building ownership, met with them as a representative of Morar Carioca.

Carmo brought with her two maps produced by the architecture team for the area. One showed the seven favelas included in Group 16. The other showed, in addition to these, locations of abandoned or little-used buildings in the area that would make good candidates for the installation of schools, health centers, and daycares. “My job is hard, because the mayor is a crazy visionary,” said Eugenia, “There are so many things he wants to do. But he really does want to do something here in Cordovil.”

Carmo brought with her this map from the contracted architecture firm showing the Group 16 favelas between Avenida Brasil to the north (green), the Irajá River to the southeast (blue), and the train tracks to the southwest (red).

The four community leaders present–Irenaldo, Eduardo Oliveira de Matos, Shirlei Felix Santiago, and Janete Faria de Oliveira–said theirs were committed communities who would use the proposed public works well. Over 4000 residents had already enrolled in digital literacy courses despite low public investment in the area; residents had to go all the way to Penha for access to a public library.

“There will be Morar Carioca works here in, at the maximum, two years,” said Eugenia.

Positive Steps for Participation 

At their office in downtown Rio, an hour and a half from Cordovil, iBase surveyors who worked on the project say the participatory processes they had begun to facilitate in Cordovil were what truly differentiated Morar Carioca from past upgrading programs.

“The idea behind Morar Carioca was very exciting to us. It was to really build off the lessons learned from programs in the past such as the Favela-Bairro program and the PAC,” said Sergio Azevedo, the iBase Social Diagnostic Coordinator for Morar Carioca. “In those programs, sometimes residents were given a chance to say their opinions about what was happening, but those opinions were rarely incorporated into the plans.” Prior processes constituted a form of tokenism, not full participation.

An iBase "Memory Workshop" in another Morar Carioca favela, Asa Branca

Robson Rezende, the iBase field coordinator for Morar Carioca Group 16, said that iBase facilitated three different activities in Cordovil. The first was the “memory workshop,” in which oral histories were gathered about the origins of the community from older residents. Some of them described the founding of the community in 1965 and the fact that people moved there from the northeast and from the favela of Praia do Pinto in the South Zone, which burned down in 1969 after the community had resisted removal three times under governor Negrão de Lima.

Secondly, iBase conducted focus groups of different kinds of residents, such as young people, the elderly, and business owners. In these, not only residents from the favela but also residents of the surrounding area participated. Rezende said, “Morar Carioca believed ideologically in something that iBase has been saying for years: that there is not a difference between the favelas and the city. Favelas are part of the city. In order to understand how they function within the city as a whole, you need to talk to neighbors from outside and understand which spaces in the city as a whole the residents use–because that’s going to be much larger than the area of the favela itself. For example, it is important for many residents of Cordovil to have access to the Madureira market for shopping, and many work in the Cemetery of Caju,” down Avenida Brasil.

iBase's focus groups pinpointed details surrounding health and education access issues in the Cordovil area.

“Another important element of these focal groups was allowing people small enough forums that they will feel comfortable giving honest opinions; that is, separating average residents from community leaders so they are speaking for themselves rather than having someone else speak for them,” said Rezende. “Doing this you can gain additional insights. For example, for three years, on paper, there had been free technical training courses offered for residents at a nearby center called Senac, but it came up in the focus groups that no one would go to these sessions because they had not heard about them.” The iBase team then noted that inter-community communication channels was an important issue to address.

According to the focus groups, said Rezende, “the public sector was really not present” in the areas of the Group 16 favelas because although there had been works to install a water network and a daycare, “these were not preserved in good quality. They were functioning like something designed for third-class citizens.” This came in addition to issues that iBase had anticipated hearing about such as open sewerage, broken pavement, and inadequate public lighting.

The final activity that iBase facilitated was the “dreams workshop” in which residents gave their specific suggestions for public works. iBase used the results of all three of these activities to advise the Macrodiagnostic and Microdiagnostic Reports on Group 16, made together with the architecture firm. The following step would have been for the firm to present their recommendations to the community and for the community to give feedback in an activity called the “Roda de Diálogo” (Dialogue Circle). Then the “Intervention Plan” would be finalized by the architects, together with the “Integration Plan” for socially connecting the favelas with the surrounding areas.

The pink spaces on this map, created by Arquos architects and showed to community leaders by Eugenia Carmo of the city government, mark abandoned buildings where the architects recommend schools and health facilities be built.

The Roda de Diálogo occurred in a few of the eleven initial groups of favelas to receive Morar Carioca such as Jardim America and Barreira do Vasco. But it did not occur in Pica-Pau; the architects and iBase have been waiting for months for the city government to release funding for them to proceed.

The Pica-Pau architects’ plans are ready for the Roda de Dialogo. Jonas Goudinho of Arquos is extremely proud of them; he incorporated the perspectives from the iBase surveys to address the issues of access to transportation, health, and education resources. He has calculated the reach of existing schools and health centers based not on their capacity but on what physical obstacles–the river, highways, and housing projects–block residents from arriving quickly. Based on this new calculation, he has indicated both places where a new daycare should be built and places where bridges and pedestrian space should be constructed. It even falls within the Morar Carioca architects’ prerogative to suggest re-routing of local bus routes, and Goudinho has suggestions for this as well.

Arquos architects suggest abandoned buildings like these be converted into public facilities in Cordovil's Morar Carioca redesign.

Goudinho, like the iBase team, was excited to participate in Morar Carioca in an effort to innovate based on the lessons of past upgrades. A graduate of an elementary and high school in Rio’s Santa Teresa neighborhood, he did volunteer work in the nearby favela of Prazeres and became an architect with the hope of working on design issues in favelas in a professional capacity. Goudinho said of the Arquos plans for Group 16 what Rezende said of iBase’s surveys: “We believe very strongly in what we did there.”

The Waiting Game

After iBase’s contract with the Rio de Janeiro city government was cancelled on November 28, 2012, they continued surveying activities on their own budget. But in early February, with funds shrinking and no visible commitment from the city to supporting continuation of the Morar Carioca activities in Cordovil, they ended their fieldwork and sent a letter, pictured at right, to all residents who had participated.

The letter thanked participants and explained the circumstances surrounding the premature end of iBase’s work. It noted, “We consider a program like Morar Carioca an advance in public policy as it considers the favela a form of the city, and we believe only active monitoring done by favela residents will make the program something that respects the right to a more just, democratic, and sustainable Rio de Janeiro for everyone. This is a priority for iBase that has accompanied urban interventions in Rio over the long term, always defending the rights of favela populations and other marginalized groups and facilitating their participation.”

Rezende, in an interview, brought up again the importance of developing citizen dialogue surrounding urban interventions as a long-term process. Because of this, he said that cutting off participatory planning activities with no restart date was “very bad. The months start to go by,” he said. “The residents don’t hear anything.” He shook his head.

Rezende said some perspective could be gained by taking note of when the Morar Carioca activities were occurring in fullest force across the city: August, September, and October 2012, the months running up to the Rio de Janeiro mayoral election.

For the past few months, he has heard more silence than anything else.

Rezende said the degree to which citizens unified and brainstormed solutions for Cordovil was empowering in itself, especially because several residents spoke up who never thought they had anything to contribute to community planning before this point. The iBase letter emphasizes this accomplishment and expresses hope that its momentum will guide planning in Cordovil in the future. “iBase is still rooting for the success of Morar Carioca,” the letter finishes. Representatives both of iBase and of Arquos have encouraged Cordovil community leaders to continue lobbying for the arrival of Morar Carioca works.

In the Pica-Pau Residents’ Association headquarters, Irenaldo is trying to schedule another meeting with a representative of the city government. “We just want to know if we should expect public works,” he says. “If so, when should we expect them? This year? Next year? I know the architects have drawn a set of plans that are ready right now.”

Manguinhos residents denounce a year's worth of standing sewage water in an area where PAC upgrading supposedly addressed infrastructure issues.

“Here we are, abandoned in the sewage!” two Manguinhos residents exclaimed, pointing to the flooded, mosquito-ridden streets encircling their homes that had been that way for over a year. They recounted that government programs such as the federal Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) and PAC II had promised infrastructure improvements to the community, but none of them had addressed the urgent sewage situation. “I have six children (including a newborn). Where I am going to go?” one woman explained, exasperated.

These complaints were voiced during a protest dubbed “Impacted Communities” held Saturday, April 13th, during which representatives from different social movements across the city proceeded through Manguinhos denouncing the precariousness of health and sanitation infrastructure in the aftermath of various government projects. The event was conceived two months prior when leaders from several movements—including the World Cup and Olympics People’s Committee, Aldeia Maracana, the Rio de Janeiro Health Forum, and Manguinhos’ own Human Rights Laboratory—got together to exchange experiences regarding highly contested privatizations, arbitrary removals, and a general restriction of citizenship, as well as articulate organizing strategies.

The "Networks of Impacted Areas Against Privatization" united several groups from the city of Rio.

The conditions being denounced were visibly manifested at several points throughout the day. When the groups met at a plaza in Manguinhos in Rio’s North Zone, news surfaced that the event’s organizer Fernando Soares, president of the Laboratório de Direitos Humanos, was suffering from a case of dengue fever and would be unable to lead the community walk-through. The group witnessed polluted and clogged drainage ditches and overflowing garbage dumpsters, set against a backdrop of children playing soccer in a field barren of public infrastructure. Behind the field, some residents still lived in partially-demolished rows of houses.

The speakers that opened the event discussed the importance of unity and giving a voice to “groups who are unheard and invisible.” One protester dressed in indigenous attire as a reminder of the recent, ongoing mobilization surrounding the Aldeia Maracana as an example for other activists in the city, saying, “I have never seen so many diverse people from Rio so unified about a cause.”

Speakers discussed the closure and privatization of public health facilities without adequate alternative care, water and air pollution in Santa Cruz due to the Thyseen Krupp mine, lack of transparency and dignity in housing removals, and the PAC’s “superficial make-up” public works in Manguinhos that have failed to effectively upgrade the community’s sewerage system. Organizers also denounced hostile UPP behavior toward residents of the community, which includes daily random searches of personal possessions and racial slurs. 

The walkthrough of Manguinhos, in Rio's North Zone adjacent to the community of Jacarezinho, lasted over three hours.

After these speeches, the protest made its way through Manguinhos encouraging residents to take the microphone and add their own commentary at various stopping points. A primary criticism was that although the community has received millions of dollars-worth through PAC I and PAC II investments, the projects have failed to address the community’s most urgent needs. In addition to this, residents and organizers also denounced the arbitrary housing removals that have been taking place in Manguinhos since 2009 purportedly in order to upgrade the community. The lawyer defending those families trying to remain in their homes explained that residents are not being given “the minimum conditions to complain, nor to oppose what is being done to them.” Protestor Monica Lima of the Rio de Janeiro Health Forum said that the authorities employ an inhumane expulsion tactic: abandoning residents in the middle of the garbage and rats, cutting public utilities such as light and water, and permitting unhealthy and unlivable conditions to force families out. Residents also reiterated that the quality and size of government resettlement housing (40 square meters) which has been constructed along the edge of the Manguinhos community does not qualify as dignified housing.

Some residents still live among rows of housing from which their neighbors have been removed.

Three hours along, the group entered a series of thin alleyways flooded with six inches of sewage water, where a resident had died recently due to an infectious disease. “This is what good the PAC has done for us,” one resident said darkly, alluding to the program’s misappropriation of funds and unresponsiveness to basic demands for years. Watermarks two feet high drew rings around the homes on each side, indicating the height of the water when rain was heavy. Mosquitoes buzzed. 

In Monica Lima’s view, these individual examples of precarious infrastructure and government neglect are in fact part of a larger “global city” project that generates profits at the expense of the city’s poor. “This is a model of development that will favor whom?” she stated. This project—in which hosting mega-events and attracting huge private enterprise are central—is one that “expels the poor… and does not generate jobs…[or] resolve the structural problems.” In reference to the city’s privatization of the healthcare system, she concluded that “the capital, those in power, they are choosing who should live and who should die.”

Residents from Manguinhos took up the microphone as the group moved through the community, speaking to their specific experiences of government upgrading and policing programs.

Organizers will be meeting periodically in upcoming weeks to discuss further resistance strategies and incorporate other communities facing human rights violations into the discussion. “Here in Manguinhos,” one woman explained, “we already do that—meet up with each other and share perspectives about what’s happening to people so the resistance can grow.” The next “Ato-Encontro” will take place on Friday, May 31st at 1pm near the Residents’ Association of Vila Turismo/Favelinha.

“People here have just gotten used to waiting for a miracle,” explained one resident during the day’s event. “It’s not going to happen from outside just like that.”