{"id":22288,"date":"2015-06-02T09:30:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T12:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2015-06-03T09:34:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T12:34:39","slug":"complexo-do-alemao-residents-highlight-rio-governments-broken-promises-of-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=22288","title":{"rendered":"Complexo do Alem\u00e3o Residents Highlight Rio Government\u2019s Broken Promises of Housing in Favela da Skol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victims of the City government\u2019s broken promises of housing in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> spoke out\u00a0at an event held in the community by Rio de Janeiro’s\u00a0Public Defender\u2019s Office<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday May 23.<\/p>\n

The Public Defender\u2019s Office exists to guarantee access to legal assistance for all Brazilians, a right enshrined in the constitution. It launched its\u00a0\u201cCaravan of Rights<\/a>\u201d campaign in a community sports center on the weekend. Residents were able to\u00a0talk to public defenders about\u00a0their rights and had access to a range of services, from printing identity documents to accessing information on jobs and training.<\/p>\n

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

The event was a chance for ex-residents of a community in Alem\u00e3o that was removed by the City government to speak about their plight in front of an audience of several hundred. The discussion was led by Joaquim Neto, President of the National Association of Public Defenders.<\/p>\n

Ex-residents of the community known as Favela da Skol<\/a>, named after the Skol beer factory once located there, described their desire for new housing on the site of their old homes\u2014a promise made to them by then Vice-Governor (now Governor) Luiz Pez\u00e3o.<\/p>\n

Approximately 500 families had occupied the land for over a decade when they were removed between 2009 and 2011, on the grounds that the houses were in an area of risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They were represented by Regina Dantas, President of the Skol Residents\u2019 Association. She described the uncertainty the removed families feel, unsure if the rent assistance provided by the government will be taken away and if they will ever return, especially now that Skol has been cited as a potential location for a long-awaited university in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Dantas’ testimony was echoed by that of ex-resident Camila Santos, who explained the seriousness of the situation. \u201cNo one chooses to live in an area of risk,\u201d she said. \u201cThey do so out of extreme need.\u201d Many of the families, already living in vulnerable conditions\u00a0before being evicted, have been struggling to get by with a small amount of social rent provided by the government, at a value that has not been increased in years. Santos\u00a0said that Governor Pez\u00e3o promised new houses in nine months<\/a>, but the community is still waiting five years on.<\/p>\n

She fears that if the university is built on the Skol site not all the ex-residents will be rehoused there and that some might eventually be offered public housing<\/a> outside of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o. \u201cWe\u2019re not sure what\u2019s going on, we haven\u2019t seen any documents, no one has confirmed anything\u2026 We\u2019ll keep on fighting until the end so that we can all be rehoused here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santos\u00a0is not happy with the possibility of being\u00a0offered public housing in Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a>, far from Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, located in the North Zone<\/a>. \u201cMy daughters go to school here, my husband and I work here. I don\u2019t want to be moved away when the Governor promised us that we\u2019d stay in the same location.\u201d<\/p>\n

The public audience was one part of a day of activities coordinated by the Public Defender\u2019s Office. It\u00a0was the result of several meetings held with community leaders who make up the Juntos Pelo Complexo do\u00a0Alem\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0(Together for Alem\u00e3o) collective to identify areas of need related to rights and services.<\/p>\n

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

Daniella Vitagliano, coordinator of the event, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve been holding meetings with community leaders to discuss collective issues in the community. And from these collective issues we have mobilized the different areas (or\u00a0\u201cn\u00facleos\u201d) of the Public Defender\u2019s Office,\u201d she said. These include, among others: consumer issues, human rights<\/a>, violence against women and land and housing<\/a>, which Vitagliano described as \u201ca very serious issue in Alem\u00e3o.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, residents who came to the open event in the sports center could meet with various officials and service providers, to discuss legal assistance, rights and information on health and employment, among others.<\/p>\n

Alan Brum from the community\u00a0organization Ra\u00edzes em Movimento<\/a> and L\u00facia Cabral, who runs educational charity\u00a0Educap<\/a>, both widely respected organizations\u00a0in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, took part in the meetings with the Public Defenders\u2019 Office in the run-up to the launch of the Caravan of Rights campaign.<\/p>\n

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

Brum\u00a0spoke of the need for the Public Defender\u2019s Office to raise its visibility among Alem\u00e3o residents, which he described as \u201ca population that often doesn\u2019t have access to information about its rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabral\u00a0agreed, saying that even though the Public Defender\u2019s Office \u201chas its doors open,\u201d not enough people are aware of how to get access to rights. Events like this one help \u201cimprove this visibility, because spreading the word in a community with almost 200,000 residents can be complicated.\u201d\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Providing space for residents to address concerns and access services as part of a group can have positive results. Santos\u00a0said she was pleased to speak to a large audience on the day and share information about the housing situation with many other ex-residents of Favela da Skol. She said it was a chance to remind people of \u201cthe notion that it really is true that we can fight for our rights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victims of the City government\u2019s broken promises of housing in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o spoke out\u00a0at an event held in the community by Rio de Janeiro’s\u00a0Public Defender\u2019s Office\u00a0on Saturday May 23. The Public Defender\u2019s Office exists […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":22296,"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":[1293,1290,1333,329,1329],"tags":[1027,1166,756,32,1652,11,1343,282,26,25,618,37,69,210,270,135,21],"writer":[1596],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-solutions","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-area-of-risk-designation","13":"tag-awaiting-public-housing","14":"tag-community-organizing","15":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","16":"tag-favela-da-skol","17":"tag-forced-evictions","18":"tag-governor-pezao","19":"tag-housing","20":"tag-housing-rights","21":"tag-human-rights","22":"tag-neighborhood-association","23":"tag-north-zone","24":"tag-public-defenders","25":"tag-public-housing","26":"tag-resistance","27":"tag-social-rent","28":"tag-west-zone","29":"writer-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","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\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}