{"id":16691,"date":"2014-07-17T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=16691"},"modified":"2015-12-23T21:53:29","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T00:53:29","slug":"three-months-on-families-evicted-from-oitelerj-site-still-without-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=16691","title":{"rendered":"Three Months On, Families Evicted from Oi\/Telerj Site Still Without Homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Up to 250 people are currently\u00a0sheltered in the gymnasium of Our Lady of Loreto Catholic Church, near Rio de Janeiro\u2019s international airport, over three months\u00a0after being violently evicted from the abandoned Oi\/ex-Telerj<\/a>\u00a0site in the North Zone.<\/span>\u00a0With nowhere to go and dependent on donations,\u00a0the group\u00a0claim to be victims of low wages and increasing rents in a situation that has intensified during the preparation periods for the World Cup and Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

The group, who self-identify as the ‘Telerj community,\u2019 are the remainder\u00a0of the\u00a0spontaneous occupation\u00a0of 8,000 that occupied the abandoned industrial space<\/a>\u00a0in Engenho Novo for 12 days in April. The eviction on April 11 drew international attention<\/a> after military police\u00a0used violent tactics to evicted the occupying families, including young children, just weeks before the start of the World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A second violent eviction<\/a> from outside a municipal administrative building on April 15, and a third negotiated eviction from outside the city\u2019s Cathedral on May 3, discouraged many families from resisting further. Many returned to their original communities to\u00a0seek refuge\u00a0with friends or family.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With nowhere to go, some\u00a0families had no other option but to remain within the movement.\u00a0The remaining 250 are\u00a0living in rudimentary conditions, with their survival dependent\u00a0on donations from the Catholic Church. Food barely feeds everyone everyday, and diapers, powdered milk, and essential supplies for children are scarce. One resident referred to their degrading living conditions by showing how he ate his food by\u00a0scooping it up\u00a0with his hands in the absence of forks.<\/p>\n

Seventy\u00a0tents stand\u00a0in rows in the gymnasium, and\u00a0three urinals and three ladies toilets serve\u00a0the entire community. Families share\u00a0space, clotheslines, and their limited possessions. The community\u00a0works together to keep the space clean, sanitized, and free from illness, but infestations of rats, mosquitos, and visiting monkeys still cause problems.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One\u00a0resident, Vitor, explained\u00a0how\u00a0living with\u00a0people from such eclectic communities has been awkward and at times created tensions. Indicating to one man across the room, he explained, \u201cI\u2019ve lived in the same community as this guy for 30 years,\u201d and then pointing to a woman mopping the gymnasium floor he, \u201cBut this woman, I\u2019ve only known for 60 days.\u201d He went on to describe the varying levels of trust\u00a0between residents\u00a0in the fledgling\u00a0community.<\/p>\n

The leaders of\u00a0the local communities who had formed the leadership\u00a0of\u00a0the original Telerj community\u00a0no longer accompany the movement. The current\u00a0leader, former trafficker Rodrigo Moreira, explained\u00a0he did\u00a0not know their\u00a0whereabouts.<\/p>\n

Speaking at\u00a0a recent event<\/a> hosted by city councilman Renato Cinco, Rodrigo voiced his belief in the\u00a0importance for the community to continue resisting, to battle against unfaithful government promises\u00a0and call for accountability, and to denounce\u00a0violent and repressive tactics of government security forces.<\/p>\n

Claiming assistance<\/h3>\n

Many in\u00a0the community\u00a0lost their documents in the commotion of the first eviction, leaving them without necessary social security or taxpayer\u00a0numbers to register\u00a0for the government\u2019s social programs. At the start of June, those without documents were assessed by government officials, and told it would take eight weeks to analyze the information to discern who they were and which social programs they might be entitled to.<\/p>\n

But far\u00a0from the tourist beach neighborhoods\u00a0and busy commercial center, the Telerj community’s bargaining power\u00a0in their fight for housing has been significantly reduced. The City government, holding most of the cards, is\u00a0due to conclude its\u00a0analysis by the end of July.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At a public hearing on May 30, the Sub Secretary\u00a0of Special Social Protection at\u00a0the Municipal Department of Social Development, Rodrigo Abel, claimed<\/a> that 569 households from the initial\u00a0Telerj community had already registered through the federal government\u2019s Cadastro \u00danico (Cad\u00danico) registration program, by using their retained documentation. From this group, Abel stated, 482 had been granted Bolsa Fam\u00edlia<\/a>, or the local complementary program, Carioca Family Card.<\/p>\n

Rosa, who remains part of\u00a0the Telerj community, explained that she did not want Bolsa Fam\u00edlia handouts as they are insufficient to cover rising rents.<\/p>\n

Though\u00a0the principal demand of \u201cWe want housing!\u201d\u00a0is identical now as to what it was in April, only 20 families had been registered\u00a0to a housing program, according to Abel.<\/p>\n

Many\u00a0of the social programs, such as Minha Casa Minha Vida<\/a>, Bolsa Familia, Carioca Family Card, Bolsa Carioca, Social Rent (a rent aid program of up to R$400 per month for a maximum 12 months), and various subsets of these programs are all being considered as solutions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2012, President Dilma Rousseff, Mayor Eduardo Paes, and ex-Governor S\u00e9rgio Cabral promised to build 2,240 apartments on the Oi\/ex-Telerj site<\/a>, to be known as Bairro Carioca II. However, after\u00a0more than two years of negotiations<\/a>, the deal is still incomplete and no further public\u00a0information has been made\u00a0available.<\/p>\n

There\u00a0is nothing to suggest that the Telerj community who are successful in receiving\u00a0Minha Casa Minha Vida will be allocated housing on the Oi\/ex-Telerj site. In the meantime, the families sheltered at the\u00a0Our Lady of Loreto Catholic Church wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Up to 250 people are currently\u00a0sheltered in the gymnasium of Our Lady of Loreto Catholic Church, near Rio de Janeiro\u2019s international airport, over three months\u00a0after being violently evicted from the abandoned […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":16868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1288,335,336,1329],"tags":[1166,697,272,11,282,26,157,296,17,210,135,1351],"writer":[1031],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-policies","10":"category-violations","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-awaiting-public-housing","13":"tag-bolsa-familia","14":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","15":"tag-forced-evictions","16":"tag-housing","17":"tag-housing-rights","18":"tag-minha-casa-minha-vida","19":"tag-occupation","20":"tag-police-brutality","21":"tag-public-housing","22":"tag-social-rent","23":"tag-telerj","24":"writer-nick-pope"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=16691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}