{"id":20158,"date":"2015-02-11T08:53:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T11:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=20158"},"modified":"2023-08-23T12:21:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T15:21:17","slug":"authorities-fail-to-monitor-whether-public-housing-residents-benefit-from-the-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=20158","title":{"rendered":"Authorities Fail to Monitor Whether Public Housing Residents Benefit from the Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For the original in Portuguese, published in Jornal Extra, click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0[original article features video with X.].<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Ministry of Cities, the federal bank Caixa, the Municipal Housing Secretariat–none of these authorities know if the people who live in the apartments under the federal program Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV)<\/a>, or “My House My Life”\u00a0are really benefiting from it. If they were to assess the results of the program, the local government would know about what happened to resident X., a 55-year-old bricklayer evicted one year ago from his apartment by the militia<\/a>\u00a0in the Ferrara condominium in Campo Grande<\/a>. There are at least five other people who were forced\u00a0to leave their apartments and who sought support\u00a0from the Police Station\u00a0for the Repression of\u00a0Acts of Organized Crime (Draco). As EXTRA highlighted last\u00a0Monday, X., who lost his home, was the key witness in an investigation that resulted in the imprisonment of 21 people. Today, he lives on the streets with his wife and two daughters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The role of assessing the program is a game of “hot potato”\u00a0between the federal housing bank Caixa, the agency responsible for financing the apartments, and the Municipal Housing Secretariat, which organizes the housing\u00a0lottery\u00a0and delivers the apartments to residents. According to Caixa, it is the job of the state and municipal \u201cpartner secretariats\u201d to control this process. The secretariat alleges that its role ends when it hands the apartments over to new owners and that, according to the contract, it is not responsible for monitoring whether the owners have been evicted from their homes. Today, the principal tool to combat irregularities regarding the apartments is a telephone number (0800-7216268) provided by Caixa.<\/p>\n

\"X.
X. lived in the street with his family for 16 days. Photo: Foto: Urbano Erbiste \/ Ag\u00eancia O Globo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the apartments under the program continue to function without any control\u00a0from the pubic sector, bricklayer X. continues without support or shelter from the State. After giving his testimony to Draco agents, X. was put under the witness protection program, and lived for a time outside Rio de Janeiro state with his family. However, due to legal violations, X. was expelled\u00a0from the program and had to return to Rio. After living two months in the headquarters of the State Secretariat of Protection (Seseg), he had to leave the building.<\/p>\n

Monday, EXTRA contacted Seseg and the State government, neither of which commented\u00a0on the case. The National Human Rights Secretariat, responsible for the witness protection program, said\u00a0that the reinstatement of X. into the program \u201cwould depend on approval given by the Deliberative Counsel which is formed by various public institutions and civil society actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apartment paid off<\/h3>\n

X. was evicted from his home at the beginning of last year. For the apartment, the bricklayer had paid R$50,000, the original loan already\u00a0paid back in its entirety to\u00a0Bank Caixa Econ\u00f4mica.<\/p>\n

\"Ferrara
Ferrara condominium in Campo Grande. Photo: M\u00e1rcia Foletto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Protection versus\u00a0militia<\/h3>\n

After standing witness to the actions of the paramilitary group at Draco, X. was taken away under the witness protection program to a shelter in the Baixada Fluminense situated in an area run by a\u00a0militia.<\/p>\n

Living on the street<\/h3>\n

Shortly after, he was transferred with his family to a small city\u00a0in the Central-West region of Brazil. There, after living in a\u00a0favela, they lived on the street for 16 days.<\/p>\n

Judicial action<\/h3>\n

The Ministry of Cities reports\u00a0that the situation involving X.\u2019s apartment is \u201cpart of an ongoing judicial process,\u201d and that they are\u00a0following and awaiting the final decision.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original in Portuguese, published in Jornal Extra, click\u00a0here\u00a0[original article features video with X.]. The\u00a0Ministry of Cities, the federal bank Caixa, the Municipal Housing Secretariat–none of these authorities know if […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":20161,"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":[1293,1330,336],"tags":[282,26,25,33,157,30],"writer":[1526,1527],"translator":[491],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-translation","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-housing","11":"tag-housing-rights","12":"tag-human-rights","13":"tag-militia","14":"tag-minha-casa-minha-vida","15":"tag-urban-violence","16":"writer-lua-marinatto","17":"writer-rafael-soares","18":"translator-emma-platais"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20158","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\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20158"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=20158"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=20158"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=20158"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=20158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}