{"id":82306,"date":"2025-12-23T17:25:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=82306"},"modified":"2025-12-29T14:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T17:40:18","slug":"rio-de-janeiro-designs-its-first-plan-for-social-interest-housing-popular-council-launches-campaign-to-ensure-plan-addresses-real-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=82306","title":{"rendered":"Rio de Janeiro Designs First Plan for Social Interest Housing: Popular Council Launches Campaign to Ensure Plan Addresses Real Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"First<\/a>
First PMHIS public hearing, April 2025. Photo: Felipe Litsek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

For the first time in its history, Rio de Janeiro is drafting a Municipal Plan for Social Interest Housing (PMHIS<\/a>, by its Portuguese acronym). In November, as the PMHIS entered its final stage of development, a cross-community movement called the Popular Council<\/a> launched a public campaign<\/a> for the plan to embrace key community demands that tackle the city\u2019s socio-spatial inequalities.<\/p>\n

Despite Rio de Janeiro’s chronic housing problems\u2014including a housing deficit surpassing 200,000 units, according to City Hall<\/a>\u2014the city has never had a housing plan, revealing how disinterested public authorities have been in responding to this need. The void has long been denounced by urban social movements<\/a>, which have been pressuring City Hall for an effective housing policy, beyond temporary programs such as social rent or federal initiatives such as the My House My Life housing program (MCMV<\/a>, by its Portuguese acronym).<\/p>\n

In March 2025, Rio’s Municipal Housing Secretariat (SMH<\/a>) announced the development of a local plan for social interest housing. The announcement follows a guideline set twenty years ago by the federal government via Law 11,124\/2005<\/a>, which established the National System<\/a> and Fund for Social Interest Housing<\/a> and requires municipalities to create local plans in order to access the fund\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n

In Rio de Janeiro, the federal legislation was only regulated in 2019, when the municipality committed to drafting its plan through an inclusive process with active civil society participation. The plan is meant to guide the city\u2019s housing policy over the next eight years.<\/p>\n

The process of drafting the PMHIS moved forward in 2025. The secretariat responsible held public consultations, thematic seminars, hearings, internal meetings of the managing council and other initiatives aimed at enabling civil society actors\u2014especially grassroots movements, research agencies and social organizations\u2014to weigh in. Despite the spaces created, low public participation became evident over the course of the process, as did uncertainty about how community demands were\u2014or were not\u2014being incorporated into the plan. These issues drew criticism<\/a> from actors involved, culminating, in November, in the Popular Council<\/a>\u2019s launch of a public campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Created during the cycle of mega-events hosted in Rio de Janeiro\u2014when over 20,000 families were forcibly evicted<\/a> from their homes\u2014the Popular Council emerged with a shared agenda: fighting forced evictions<\/a> and defending the right to housing in the city. It is made up of various community leaders from Rio de Janeiro\u2019s favelas and peripheries, as well as technical allies, and has since been working to defend residents\u2019 right to remain in their homes.<\/p>\n

The Popular Council\u2019s demands were shaped during plenaries held every month at the headquarters of the Favelas Pastoral Committee<\/a>\u00a0housed in Rio’s Catholic Archdiocese. Key demands include increasing the housing budget to at least 1% of the city\u2019s total revenue\u2014considered the minimum for an effective housing policy\u2014and creating a municipal program to produce social interest housing, so the city does not rely solely on federal programs such as MCMV. The Popular Council is pushing for these demands to be included in the PMHIS.<\/p>\n

\"Second<\/a>
Second PMHIS public hearing, in July 2025. Photo: Felipe Litsek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Council also defends establishing housing rehabilitation programs, self-managed housing, the use of underutilized public properties for affordable housing, mapping the city\u2019s Areas of Special Social Interest (AEIS<\/a>) and effective urban and land regularization<\/a> in favelas. Taken together, the proposals reflect a broad view of the housing issue, which must be addressed through a range of measures.<\/p>\n

Another demand calls for implementing the Community Land Trust (CLT<\/a>) model in Rio de Janeiro: an urban planning instrument included in the city\u2019s Master Plan<\/a>\u00a0that seeks to guarantee the right to remain of communities in their neighborhoods\u2014curbing real estate speculation<\/a> and gentrification<\/a>\u2014and to ensure an affordable housing stock in the city. The CLT was widely discussed during the PMHIS public hearings and thematic seminars, defended by several actors involved in drafting the document and mentioned in City Hall\u2019s assessment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ensuring meaningful popular participation is essential in this final stage of drafting Rio de Janeiro\u2019s first housing plan. The campaign led by the Popular Council is a democratic movement defending people\u2019s right to have their voices heard and respected in decisions that affect the places where they live. It is a defense of the right to the city<\/a>. It is necessary to break with a policymaking logic that keeps civil society at a distance, treating residents merely as a check box of consultation rather than as actors in deliberation and decision-making. To address the housing issue in Rio de Janeiro, the demands of those who experience and fight, day after day, for the realization of the right to adequate housing must be taken into account.<\/p>\n

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Um post compartilhado por Campanha Popular por um Plano Municipal de Habita\u00e7\u00e3o Social (@campanhapop_pmhis)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n