{"id":23081,"date":"2015-07-22T09:30:36","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T12:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=23081"},"modified":"2016-01-20T13:56:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T16:56:11","slug":"participatory-meeting-in-port-area-discusses-social-rent-as-solution-to-housing-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=23081","title":{"rendered":"Final Participatory Meeting in Port Area Discusses Social Rent as Solution to Housing Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

<\/u>On Thursday July 9, the Port Urban Development<\/span> Company (CDURP) of Rio de Janeiro held the last meeting in the series<\/a> of weekly thematic sessions on the elaboration of a public housing<\/a> plan for Rio de Janeiro\u2019s port area<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first meeting in the series took place\u00a0on June 10<\/a>\u00a0and was organized\u00a0by the Municipal Housing Secretariat<\/a>\u00a0(SMH). Over the following weeks, a group of port residents, social movement representatives, academics and journalists participated in meetings led by Alberto Silva, president of CDURP, to discuss the area’s demographics<\/a>\u00a0and resulting needs, the improvement of living conditions, and, finally, on July 9, the concept of social rent<\/a>. Throughout, the meetings aimed to address the needs of current residents\u00a0of the area first, followed by the needs of people who want to move to the area to be closer to their jobs.<\/p>\n

Following the introduction, Professor Orlando Santos Junior and Mariana Werneck, both of the Metropolis Observatory, a research group based at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), gave a brief\u00a0presentation<\/a> about social rent<\/a>. The concept is relatively new to Brazilians, with S\u00e3o Paulo the only city where it has been implemented in a more extensive way. The professor began by reminding the audience there is \u201cinternational as well as national legislation reaffirming that every person has the right to housing<\/a>. It is as fundamental as the right to live. It is from this initial idea or starting point that we can look at various national and international experiences of social rent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Sa\u00fade<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rio State\u00a0Secretariat for Social Assistance and Human Rights (SEASDH) defines social rent as a temporary solution<\/a>, beneficial to families affected by catastrophes and disasters, as in the cases of\u00a0various municipalities in the Serrana Region, and of\u00a0Niter\u00f3i<\/a> and S\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alo<\/a>, affected by heavy rain in 2013. Social rent has also been used when communities are removed due to the implementation of municipal and governmental urban revitalization projects, including the cases of\u00a0Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, Manguinhos<\/a> and Pav\u00e3o-Pav\u00e3ozinho<\/a>\u00a0which have received\u00a0PAC acceleration program<\/a>\u00a0projects.<\/p>\n

The Rio State Secretariat for Social Assistance and Human Rights (SEASDH)\u00a0defines social rent as a temporary solution<\/a>, beneficial to families affected by catastrophes and disasters<\/a>, as in the cases of various municipalities in\u00a0 <\/span>Rio State\u2019s mountainous region, and of\u00a0Niter\u00f3i<\/a> and S\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alo<\/a>, affected by heavy rain in 2013<\/a>. Social rent has also been used when communities are removed due to the implementation of municipal urban revitalization projects, including the cases of\u00a0Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, Manguinhos<\/a> and Pav\u00e3o-Pav\u00e3ozinho<\/a>\u00a0which have received investments from the\u00a0federal Growth Acceleration Program<\/a>\u00a0(PAC).<\/span><\/p>\n

From\u00a0January to\u00a0April 2015, more than 12,000 families in Rio de Janeiro state received social rent from SEASDH, with a monthly value ranging between R$400 and R$500 (US$127 to US$159).<\/p>\n

Orlando Santos Junior added, however, that \u201csocial rent could also be used as a permanent solution for housing, ensuring the right to housing without the need for individual property ownership. In this case, the person has access to public or collective housing, pays a low tax for maintenance, and has full rights to housing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He offered a\u00a0series of\u00a0case studies of social rent in various European countries, where social rent policies range from the provision of\u00a0public housing complexes\u2014which can be either public or owned by accredited agents (usually non-profit)\u2014to the distribution of subsidies to allow recipients to rent\u00a0in the private market. In this case, the right to receive such subsidies is linked to a certain social situation, such as unemployment or low income. \u201cThe main difference between Europe and Brazil,\u201d Orlando Santos Junior\u00a0said. “is the fact that private property in the EU, apart from in a few Southern European countries, is in decline, with only 56% of all housing being\u00a0private, whereas in Brazil people still live with the mentality that says owning a house is a fundamental life goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mariana Werneck continued by presenting the case of S\u00e3o Paulo, where a social rent program consisting of five projects was launched in 2002.\u00a0 <\/span>According to the researchers, the program\u2019s success \u201cis mainly due to its small scale as well as a certain form of\u00a0participation<\/a>\u00a0in the process and management of the project, such that the program\u2019s building ended up being adjusted to specific needs<\/a> of target groups.\u201d Aldair, from the Central de Movimentos Populares (Center for Popular Movements<\/a>, or CMP), stressed this element of the program, underlining the importance of matching<\/a> the program to the \u201cprofile of the people who have the right to get this social rent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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

According to Alberto Silva, social rent is an \u201cinstrument to regulate rent prices<\/a>, in this case, in Rio\u2019s central area, making available a stock of housing and representing an alternative for families who wish to live centrally, close to work.\u201d\u00a0In the case of the port area, priority access to affordable housing would be given to port residents within the Porto Maravilha Area of Special Urban Interest (AIEU-Porto Maravilha). Social rent would encourage urban renewal focused on housing, increasing the density of the buildings in the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of social rent was generally well-received by the audience. Some participants, however, criticized the fact that the discussed plan does not seem to consider factors that are crucial to other aspects of a livelihood, beyond housing. Several people pointed out the lack of\u00a0educational institutions<\/a>, grocery stores and open air markets in the area, and insisted the priority should be on building for the people who live there<\/a>, rather than building\u00a0hipster fairs and new museums to attract tourists and Cariocas from the South Zone<\/a>. \u201cIt is all\u00a0make-up<\/a>,\u201d said Ana, resident of the Sa\u00fade neighborhood in the port area.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first complete version of the participatory plan will be presented at the last in this series of meetings, that will take place in the coming weeks. The document will then be submitted to the Advisory Council to the Municipal Fund for Social Interest Housing (Conselho Gestor do Fundo Municipal de Habita\u00e7\u00e3o de Interesse Social). Felipe Nin of the Bento Rubi\u00e3o Foundation<\/a>, however, is worried about the next steps: \u201cAre we going to be involved in the execution of the plan as well? These meetings should most certainly not end here. Instead, we should follow the examples presented by the Metropolis Observatory<\/a>, where participatory meetings become part of a routine, and we should be able to <\/span>follow [the process] all the way to completion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On Thursday July 9, the Port Urban Development Company (CDURP) of Rio de Janeiro held the last meeting in the series of weekly thematic sessions on the elaboration of a public […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":23111,"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":[1267,1668,1736,1290,1333,335,329,328,1329],"tags":[1720,235,1669,1920,1261,842,282,878,152,725,148,146,301,158,135,1403],"writer":[1662],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gentrificationwatch","8":"category-participationwatch","9":"category-1736","10":"category-civilsociety","11":"category-event-reports","12":"category-policies","13":"category-solutions","14":"category-understanding-rio","15":"category-by-international-observers","16":"tag-affordable-housing","17":"tag-bento-rubiao","18":"tag-cdurp","19":"tag-center-for-popular-movements-cmp","20":"tag-central-rio","21":"tag-debate","22":"tag-housing","23":"tag-international-comparison","24":"tag-participation","25":"tag-policy-recommendation","26":"tag-port-region","27":"tag-porto-maravilha","28":"tag-public-policy","29":"tag-smh","30":"tag-social-rent","31":"tag-solution","32":"writer-katja-majcen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23081","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\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23081"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=23081"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=23081"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=23081"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=23081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}