02�2 WHAT IS AUTOGESTÃO? � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �

02 � 2

WHAT IS AUTOGESTÃO?

INTRODUCTION

Autogestão, or self management, is based on principles of democratic participation, mutual aid (mutirão), solidarity, collective action, and capacity building. It is distinct from other models of housing production in that future residents have complete agency over each stage of the project. As it is in many countries, the production of housing for low-income housing in Brazil is typically led by a collaboration of government, private developers, and construction companies. The households that eventually live in these projects have no say over their design or management, while developers construct them in an effort to minimize costs and maximize profits. This means that units are just large enough to comply with government standards, public spaces are haphazardly designed, and there is little concern for resident needs.

Autogestão is a compelling and viable alternative to this arrangement. In keeping with democratic principles, it is the process through which families collectively manage the planning, design, and construction processes via popular participation. In autogestão, communities develop the technical capacity and political understanding necessary to realize their own housing and fight for their rights. All participants contribute their labor to the production of housing and engage in mutual aid, paying it forward to those still waiting for their own housing even after they have received their own. These contributions take several forms, including manual labor, decision making, and advocacy. Most of this labor is performed by women. Put simply, autogestão is the construction and management of housing by and for the people that live in it. It is not a farfetched fantasy; the tens of thousands of housing units produced through self management in Brazil are wellconstructed, beautiful, and aligned with resident needs and desires. When necessary, technical experts are brought in to work on projects for large-scale electrical needs, elevator installations, and plumbing.

However, this is most typical with very large projects. For smaller housing projects, housing is often produced exclusively by members of the movement with assistance from technical advisory firms. Furthermore, self-managed housing developments will remain affordable, providing security and peace of mind to their residents by removing threats of eviction or gentrification. In order to determine how to distribute available autogestão units, the movements have developed a sophisticated participation-based point system. Under this system, members are selected based on their contributions to the movement: the more sweat equity volunteered by a member, the sooner housing will be made available to them. The movement ensures this point system is as equitable as possible, accounting for differences in ability and the time members are able to contribute. In order to do so, members are allowed to send family members or close friends as proxies to volunteer their time or labor and thereby receive participation points that will assist them in being granted an autogestão unit.

Each housing project is managed by a series of commissions. Members must join at least one commission, in which tasks vary. For instance, environmental commissions investigate the conditions of the project and to ensure adherence to legally binding environmental standards and often consider landscape architecture, pollution mitigation, and stormwater management, depending on the preferences of residents. Financial commissions seek to secure funding for the project and budget for renovations. Additional commissions vary, but can include accounting, women’s empowerment, logistics coordination for meetings, labor and accident prevention,

and communications, among many others. Each month, the commissions host meetings to allow for the coordinators to exchange updates on the project status and the work of different commissions, make plans for future events, and regularly convene with one another.

More than 100,000 units have been built under three past federally and municipally funded housing programs in Brazil: the Fundo de Atendimento à População Moradora em Habitação Subnormal Comunitário (Fund for Assistance to the Dwelling Population in Substandard Housing, or FUNAPS Comunitário/ FUNACOM), the Solidarity Credit, and Minha Casa Minha Vida Entidades (My House My Life Entities, or MCMV-E). These units have been consistently larger than required by law and significantly lower in cost. Autogestão units produced under these programs range from 35% to 42% larger than the minimum requirements established by MCMV-E (56.55 sq. meters to 59.69 sq. meters,8 compared to 42 sq. meters).9 In addition, autogestão construction often costs only 40% of what housing built by forprofit developers costs (see Chapter 5 of this report for further research).10 Autogestão not only produces housing of higher quality and size; it also produces housing that empowers communities and positively impacts many facets of life. As described above, principles of democracy and participation are embedded in this mode of housing, which means residents are deeply involved in the design and construction of housing projects and of their individual units. This involvement leads to empowerment, resident buy-in, and skill building, and allows units to be catered to individual needs and desires, instilling pride and dedication among residents.

Autogestão’s production of more affordable housing increases access to safe, secure, and high-quality homes, but also frees up funds for residents to improve other aspects of their lives. Residents shared with the capstone team that their increased availability of income due to significantly lower housing costs has allowed them to pursue further education and

02 � 3

FRAMING THE ISSUE

thereby obtain better jobs, to leave dangerous or unstable housing situations, and to provide more opportunities to their children. This is extremely important for the women who represent 80% of the movement. Inadequate housing impacts the foundations of one’s life — health, employment, and education, among many others. For members of the movement, therefore, autogestão does not just represent an alternative to more expensive housing, but a fundamental shift in their quality of life.

The past programs supporting autogestão, however, have faced barriers and discontinuities that have negatively impacted the scaling up of this form of housing and have proven the need for more stable federal legislation.

In 1989, under Mayor Luiza Erundina, the city of São Paulo adopted FUNACOM, the first program in Brazil to promote the production of housing under self management and joint effort. Fundamentally it transferred responsibility for the management of resources and construction of units to neighborhood associations, from which MCMV-E later drew inspiration. Furthermore, it tied funding to the wellestablished legal entity FUNAPS, which would serve as a credit institution for construction.11 However, shortly after Erundina’s tenure in office, FUNAPS was replaced by another institution, effectively destroying FUNACOM and halting funding for self-managed housing production. The death of FUNACOM showed the need for reliable funding streams that are not vulnerable to changing political tides.

Established in 2004, Solidarity Credit was the first federal program created specifically for social movements and associations. However, because “monthly payments were calculated based on the full amount of the mortgage” and not based on households’ ability to pay,12 funding was frequently inadequate. At Condomínio Vila Patrimonial, for example, residents had to do much more manual labor than normal and to ask for complementary donations from other branches of government. As one resident recalled, participants had to grade the site themselves by jumping up and down for long periods of time, compacting the soil that would become the foundation of the housing project.

MCMV-E, launched in 2009, enabled entities to produce self-managed housing for low-income households using federal funding. MCMV-E provided better funding options than Solidarity Credit as it funded both mortgaging and subsidies. Though entities managed funding allocation within the program, MCMV-E relied on the National General Budget for its own budget allocation. This was perhaps the biggest problem with MCMV-E: because it relied on budgets passed in the legislative branch, funding was unpredictable, especially under hostile administrations like President Bolsonaro’s.13 Construction at Conjunto Habitacional Alexios Jafet, a housing project boasting 1,104 units, has come to a halt because the administration has not allocated any funds to MCMV-E; the units are only missing finishings but without continued support, thousands of families are forced to wait on housing as nearly completed units sit vacant. During MCMV-E Phase I, housing projects were only recognized officially as funding recipients once they assembled all households and participants, designs, land, technical assistance, and plans. However, assembling all of these aspects is a long process, typically lasting several years. Thus, land that was found through this process frequently fell through, ultimately being sold to construction companies or other interests. MCMV-E Phase II attempted to amend this by establishing the practice of advanced land purchase: this allowed entities to access funding to purchase land prior to the assembly of all components. Nevertheless, lands that are available for entities to purchase tend to be in areas with Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) or ambiguous land titling.14

Autogestão housing is made possible because of the strength and perseverance of the social movements and their dedicated members. For years, they have been fighting in the absence of a specific enabling legal framework, as innovative actors in the production and management of affordable housing across Brazil. UNMP is working to address this absence of governmental support with its bill establishing support and funding for autogestão at the federal level with the hopes of creating a more stable and longlasting legal framework for the production of self-managed housing. Our clients, along with many other social movements across Brazil, see autogestão as a logical means to upgrade informal settlements, regularize land, and revitalize buildings.