{"id":45995,"date":"2018-08-16T12:55:12","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T15:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=45995"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:03:12","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T17:03:12","slug":"parliamentary-front-against-evictions-residents-of-threatened-favelas-criticize-citys-actions-lack-of-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=45995","title":{"rendered":"Parliamentary Front Against Evictions: Threatened Favelas Criticize City’s Actions"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, August 3, the Parliamentary Front Against Removals, Evictions, and the Violation of the Right to Housing<\/a> hosted a public debate entitled \u201cHousing Rights and the Fight Against Evictions<\/a>\u201d at City Hall. With over fifty people in attendance\u2014including activists from favelas across the city\u2014the debate sought to call attention to communities currently facing eviction and strengthen communication between favela residents, social movements, and City authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

City Councilor\u00a0Renato Cinco<\/a>, who organized the event, opened the debate by discussing Rio’s long history of evictions<\/a> and arguing that\u00a0Marcelo Crivella<\/a>‘s mayoral administration\u00a0has only served to exacerbate the situation of favelas facing eviction. Since Crivella’s inauguration<\/a>, the City has introduced several proposals and initiatives that may facilitate evictions, including establishing a\u00a0goal<\/a> to remove houses located in areas of high environmental risk<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and creating a working group<\/a> to address matters of “resettlement” for families living in “irregular occupations.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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

The first panelist to speak was Emilia de Souza\u2014resident of\u00a0Horto<\/a>,\u00a0former president of the\u00a0Horto Residents and Friends Association<\/a>\u00a0(AMAHOR), and member of the\u00a0Popular Council<\/a>.\u00a0Souza spoke about the reality of working-class people and favela residents in Rio, noting: “Communities have been criminalized<\/a>, evicted, excluded, and forbidden to live in the South Zone<\/a> due to real estate speculation<\/a>. This is the story of Rio de Janeiro.\u201d Following her speech<\/span>, Souza shared a visual presentation, highlighting several communities’ struggles in the face of\u00a0forced evictions<\/a>, environmental injustice, and the\u00a0restriction of public services<\/a>\u2014while also voicing residents’ demands and recognizing their victories.<\/span><\/p>\n

Resident of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a>\u00a0Maria da Penha carried on the conversation noting that her community has not been respected\u2014despite the\u00a0collective rehousing<\/a>\u00a0agreement negotiated by those community members who resisted eviction<\/a> and ultimately won the right to remain. \u201cI am outraged that City authorities, having signed an agreement with twenty families, are not respecting [us]. Two years have passed<\/a> and nothing has been done,” Penha stated. She argued that the\u00a0City’s failure to fulfill its promises<\/a> represents yet another strategy to evict the remaining residents.<\/p>\n

Adriana Bevilaqua, a representative from the Public Defenders Land and Housing Nucleus<\/a>\u00a0(NUTH)\u00a0joined the conversation by noting that it is the government’s obligation to provide adequate housing for all. However, this right has not been fulfilled because there are very few measures that work to guard against evictions, she suggested. As a result, in the pre-Olympic period between 2009 and 2015,\u00a022,059 families (an estimated 77,000 individuals)<\/a>\u00a0were evicted from their homes<\/a> in Rio de Janeiro. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Drawing upon Bevilaqua\u2019s words, <\/span>Maria de Lourdes “Lurdinha” Lopes Fonseca from the National Movement for the Fight for Housing<\/a>\u00a0(MNLM) argued that there must be new tools and avenues to address evictions and reverse the speculative logic that increasingly characterizes the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following these speakers, Ver\u00f4nica Cristina de Oliveira\u2014representing the\u00a0Municipal Sub-Secretary for Housing<\/a>\u2014shared a few words about the current housing situation in Rio de Janeiro. Oliveira\u2019s speech mostly revolved around clarifying the purpose of “resettlement<\/a>.” She noted that the resettlement process seeks to conserve preexisting organizational structures within communities and that the process is carried out in a participatory manner. Furthermore, Oliveira stated that families will only be resettled when they are impacted by specific conditions, such as environmental risk. She argued that the process is transparent and that through resettlement, the City seeks to rehouse families near their original community rather than displacing them to precarious areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following Oliveira\u2019s speech, residents of various favelas were invited to express their concerns and demands.\u00a0Marcello Deodoro of\u00a0Indiana Tijuca<\/a>\u00a0in the North Zone<\/a> expressed strong criticism of City authorities, specifically Mayor Marcelo Crivella,\u00a0stating that many residents in his community still lack basic services and struggle to cover the rising cost of housing. Ant\u00f4nio Cardoso from\u00a0Rio das Pedras<\/a>\u00a0in the West Zone<\/a>, whose community won a major victory in the fight against evictions<\/a>\u00a0in late 2017, highlighted the emotional and psychological costs of evictions<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edivalma “Di” Souza da Cunha, representing the communities of Maracaj\u00e1s<\/a> and R\u00e1dio Sonda<\/a> in the North Zone, noted that the two small communities are extremely vulnerable when confronted with eviction threats<\/a>. It’s difficult for public defenders to support residents in their times of need due to the strict entry regulations at the Air Force base, which restricts access to these communities. Ana Frimerman from Ara\u00e7atiba<\/a>\u00a0in the West Zone noted that her community has reached out to the City for support in their battle against eviction by federal authorities<\/a>, but the City has failed to facilitate or make provisions to support their case. Another resident emphasized the indignation of favela residents who lack land tenure security: \u201cHow can it be that we cannot be the owners of our own houses, but that foreigners can<\/a>? How outrageous!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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

After listening to each community representative speak, Oliveira responded, defending the City’s resettlement process<\/a>. She noted: “When speaking of intervention, I’m not talking about intervention in terms of evictions, but intervention in terms of upgrading.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Oliveira continued: \u201cIt’s important to think about resettlement as a potential for upgrading and advancing a community, and not a question of eviction or<\/em> resettlement.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0She asserted that there are processes in place for communities to engage in a participatory manner during the resettlement process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Closing the debate, other speakers emphasized that the City has to date failed to dialogue with communities undergoing or threatened by eviction and that promises to communities have not been delivered. Mobilizing through the Parliamentary Front Against Evictions, residents of favelas across Rio hope that the City government will open spaces for dialogue to address these concerns and collectively ensure their right to housing.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, August 3, the Parliamentary Front Against Removals, Evictions, and the Violation of the Right to Housing hosted a public debate entitled \u201cHousing Rights and the Fight Against Evictions\u201d at City Hall. With over […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":46234,"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":[1293,1854,2555,1288,1333,1329],"tags":[1027,2594,226,1495,11,884,282,26,883,2548,2225,919,37,152,404,2413,2553,10,2541,1445,158,156,2484,4,21],"writer":[2706],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-housingwatch","9":"category-monitoringcrivella","10":"category-highlight","11":"category-event-reports","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-area-of-risk-designation","14":"tag-aracatiba","15":"tag-consequences-of-eviction-health","16":"tag-eviction-tactics-canceled-services","17":"tag-forced-evictions","18":"tag-horto","19":"tag-housing","20":"tag-housing-rights","21":"tag-indiana","22":"tag-maracajas","23":"tag-marcelo-crivella","24":"tag-mnlm","25":"tag-north-zone","26":"tag-participation","27":"tag-public-consultation","28":"tag-public-defenders-housing-nucleus-nuth","29":"tag-radio-sonda","30":"tag-real-estate-speculation","31":"tag-renato-cinco","32":"tag-rio-das-pedras","33":"tag-smh","34":"tag-south-zone","35":"tag-strategic-plan","36":"tag-vila-autodromo","37":"tag-west-zone","38":"writer-sophy-chan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45995","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\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45995"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=45995"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=45995"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=45995"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=45995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}