{"id":4725,"date":"2012-08-27T08:30:39","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T11:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=4725"},"modified":"2016-02-11T10:45:19","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T13:45:19","slug":"curicica-part-2-transolimpica-stirs-fears-of-eviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=4725","title":{"rendered":"Curicica (Part 2): TransOl\u00edmpica Stirs Fears of Eviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This is the second of four articles<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>about the cluster of favelas in\u00a0Curicica<\/a>, Jacarepagu\u00e1 that are awaiting urban integration projects through the\u00a0Morar Carioca<\/a>\u00a0upgrading program.<\/em><\/p>\n

A community that breathes.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\""In<\/p>\n

Carlos Alberto \u201cBezerra\u201d Costa, Resident\u2019s Association president of Asa Branca<\/a>, stopped to look over the row of houses that greeted us into favela Abadiana, his voice a few keys graver than usual as he spoke:\u00a0\u201cTo tell you the truth… in a year or two, this road probably won\u2019t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s often difficult to gauge the human energy of a place on an early Tuesday afternoon, but the traces of life that were visible that day made it clear this was a community that breathed. An older woman walked with her grandson’s hand in hers, exchanging quick smiles and quick comments with her neighbor as she passed. A pair of friends leaning on a stack of tires by the avenue entrance greeted Bezerra with a joke and some pats on the back. Laundry hung on lines over the river below, the bright colors of a family’s garments soaking in the heat of the sun.<\/p>\n

All of this \u2013 by what little certainty current information allows \u2013 is set to be removed from land that is slated to be part of the city’s TransOl\u00edmpica highway<\/a>, a project that will connect the Olympic Stadium in Barra da Tijuca to another Olympic cluster in the north. A promotional video<\/a> shows the projected path of the highway as a green line that glides easily across the landscape of Rio, erasing whole sections of inhabited land that include residences in and around Curicica.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to know.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"
Turquoise marks the future Olympic Park. The blue line marks the TransOl\u00edmpica. Red are the Curicica favelas featured in this series. Visit the map here: http:\/\/bit.ly\/CuricicaMapa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In some communities, the damage will be minimal. The part of Asa Branca that conflicts with the TransOl\u00edmpica is mostly new construction by residents whom Bezerra had personally warned, prior to building, of the impending risk of relocation. And according to Jos\u00e9 \u201cTilz\u00e9\u201d da Cruz, president of Vila Calmete, the only part of his community that the bus line will cut through is the first row of houses at the community’s entrance. For Bezerra and Tilz\u00e9, then, the primary concern is to house the displaced within their communities: a challenging but manageable goal with a smaller number of relocations.<\/p>\n

This is not the case in Vila Uni\u00e3o da Curicica, a great part of which sits at the edges of Estrada da Curicica and Estrada Calmete, streets that are set to be widened three times their current width in order to accommodate six lanes of traffic. As the other side of Estrada da Curicica contains a municipal hospital, it looks painfully predictable that the expansion will happen in the direction of the community, swallowing rows of houses to make way for the bus line.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way it looks, they’re going to come and remove people from the community,\u201d said V\u00e2nia de Jesus J\u00falio Neri, current president of the Residents’ Association of Vila Uni\u00e3o. \u201cBut we don’t know where we’ll be going. We don’t know if it will be on Estrada da Curicica or a completely different part of Rio. We don’t know anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Over the past year, V\u00e2nia has been busy contacting government officials, requesting for mayor Eduardo Paes or a representative to send concrete details to Vila Uni\u00e3o’s residents on the subject of upcoming evictions and relocations. But so far, all attempts at dialogue have fallen on deaf ears. \u201cWhat we want,\u201d said V\u00e2nia, \u201cis for the Prefeitura (city government) to come, sit down, and just talk<\/em> to us<\/em> about what might happen to our community. We just want to know. \u00a0But that hasn’t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second to the obvious fear of eviction, it’s this lingering ambiguity that’s perhaps most paralyzing. Without official word of the city government’s plans, Vila Uni\u00e3o is caught in a space that offers no real avenues for mobilization, defense, or anything other than just waiting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Paired with the upcoming Morar Carioca<\/a> projects in the community, V\u00e2nia and fellow residents find themselves thrown around in a sea of mixed messages. \u201cSome people say we have to leave, and others say that Morar Carioca is going to come and improve Vila Uni\u00e3o. So I just don’t really understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sudden fracture.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"\u201cA community is more than just the space it inhabits,\u201d said Regina S\u00f4nia Gomes Baptista, known by S\u00f4nia, former president of Vila Uni\u00e3o. \u201cIt’s the relationships people have formed, tied together by that shared environment. And the security and happiness that all of this brings. So no one wants to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s this simple truth that has gone ignored over the history of removals and relocations orchestrated by the city government. Though the (often forced) \u201coption\u201d of relocation may guarantee housing to the dispossessed, the baseline accomodations come devoid of the human necessities of culture and community with which many favelas are replete<\/a>. A fraction of the community evicted leaves the remaining population with broken connections and dislocated relationships. Decades of living, building, and knowing a place and its people are suddenly fractured. \u201cAll we ask is that they have a bit of caution with us,\u201d said V\u00e2nia.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the very least,\u201d she continued, \u201cwe want to stay in Jacarepagu\u00e1.\u201d In addition to maintaining proximity with their friends and family, the residents of Vila Uni\u00e3o also want to stay close to and be able to keep their jobs. Previous removals in other communities have placed people in the distant west neighborhoods of Santa Cruz and Cosmos, far from Jacarepagu\u00e1 and further still from Centro and Zona Sul where some residents already make daily commutes. As for finding new employment in those distant neighborhoods \u2013 labeled \u201cregi\u00f5es dormit\u00f3rios<\/a>\u201d for the lack of opportunities within them \u2013 well, chances are slim.<\/p>\n

S\u00f4nia also voiced concerns about the living conditions that those evicted from Vila Uni\u00e3o would find themselves in. \u201cA room, a kitchen, a bathroom \u2013 a kitchenette, basically,\u201d she said, is a far cry from the spacious and elaborate dwellings that have come to define much of her community. In many public housing projects, she explained, \u201cthe walls are thin and the rooms are cramped. Not even animals like to live that close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur only fear.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cBy removing people from their houses, by breaking the sense of security the residents have between each other, the Prefeitura will create a violent place where there wasn’t one,\u201d said photographer and activist Maur\u00edcio Hora last month\u00a0during an interview about evictions in Provid\u00eancia<\/a>, Rio’s original favela community. On the other side of the city, S\u00f4nia had similar concerns about the prospect of a displaced Vila Uni\u00e3o. \u201cWhen you watch the news,\u201d she asked, \u201cwhere do you find the highest indices of violence? In places where people live in cramped conditions with little dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The houses that line the streets of Vila Uni\u00e3o have yet to be marked for removal. But in a city where the unsuspecting residents of Provid\u00eancia came home to find eviction tags<\/a> sprayed on their outer walls \u2013 where Verdejar<\/a>, a well-established and respected environmental NGO, was notified, dispelled, and forced to watch their headquarters torn down<\/a> in the space of a few hours \u2013 silence from the municipality is an intolerable weight that proves difficult to shake off for the residents of Vila Uni\u00e3o and Abadiana.<\/p>\n

\"Vila<\/p>\n

As we sat outside S\u00f4nia’s house, enjoying coffee and biscuits amid the chirping of her pet birds, the comings and goings of her constant visitors, and the trees in her backyard, there was little in the immediate moment to be discontent about. But uncertainty has darkened the horizon. \u201cWe’ve built a good life for ourselves here,\u201d said S\u00f4nia. \u201cOur only fear is that some crazy government will come in and mess with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0for Rio’s TransOl\u00edmpica project is filled with bright sentiments, content smiles, and promises of \u201csocial inclusion.\u201d But the legacy that these Olympic projects have already left in these early stages rings more like the opposite: fear, frustration, and displacement for people at the margins of those decisions.<\/p>\n

This is the second of 4 articles about the cluster of favelas in Curicica, Jacarepagu\u00e1, Rio de Janeiro prior to upgrading through the City\u2019s Morar Carioca program. The next article will show the feelings of promise and doubt that await the upcoming urban integration project.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a>\u00a0to see more photos of the communities featured in this series, or watch the slideshow below:<\/em>
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Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This is the second of four articles\u00a0about the cluster of favelas in\u00a0Curicica, Jacarepagu\u00e1 that are awaiting urban integration projects through the\u00a0Morar Carioca\u00a0upgrading program. A community that breathes. Carlos Alberto \u201cBezerra\u201d Costa, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4733,"comment_status":"open","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":[1736,335,336],"tags":[9,584,27,581,11,282,26,129,147,5,591,200,587,592,21],"writer":[524],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-policies","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-9","11":"tag-abadiana","12":"tag-asa-branca","13":"tag-curicica","14":"tag-forced-evictions","15":"tag-housing","16":"tag-housing-rights","17":"tag-leadership","18":"tag-morar-carioca","19":"tag-olympics","20":"tag-transolimpica","21":"tag-transportation","22":"tag-vila-calmete","23":"tag-vila-uniao-de-curicica","24":"tag-west-zone","25":"writer-rexy-dorado"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=4725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}