Favelas – P2P Foundation

These community groups are transforming Rio de Janeiro into a Sharing City

Shareable — Sat, 30 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Cross-posted from Shareable.

Shanna Hanbury: Rio de Janeiro is a city of extremes. Inequality is rampant, and while a small elite enjoy the “luxury” of housing, high quality education, and concentrated public funding, the majority of its citizens share the rest. The best examples of sharing are born not out of excess but from scarcity and collective problem solving. How do you build a house without money? How can you study if you can’t afford to pay for a bus to class? How can a farmer survive with no land? How can people without access to resources reasonably start up a working business? And of course – how can people help each other stay safe?

1) Housing

There is no data to show the magnitude of self-built houses, but it is a common phenomenon in Rio’s favelas as well as in the suburbs of the city. The local term mutirão — mutual collaboration — is one of the strongest tools used. These constructions are done slowly, spanning many years, and materials bought in small amounts, and with the collaboration of friends, neighbors, and family. According to Geraldo Fonseca, a builder who lives in Maré, all the houses in his neighborhood were built this way. When asked how many houses he has helped build, he said: “Too many to count. Neighbors would come to help, and in return, I would help them too. We need one another to help with the construction and the struggle.”

Photo by Thais Cavalcante

2) Culture

The spectacle of Rio’s carnaval parade is famous all over the world. Less known however, is how samba schools function within their communities as vibrant cultural centers. There are more than 80 samba schools in Rio, located in neighborhoods left aside by the public authorities. According to carnaval expert Fabio Fabato, people gravitate to samba schools looking for fun, belonging, and identification. “People from these communities are the driving force of the samba schools and the samba schools are their driving force — it’s a very intrinsic relationship. Everything is done very collaboratively.” Samba schools fill a void in these under-funded and forgotten neighborhoods. Apart from the year-long process of preparing for the Carnaval parade, there are dance and sewing workshops, and the community will often gather for feijoada and music, among other activities.

Photo by Beija Flor

3) Education

Rio is lauded as one of the most queer-friendly cities in the world, but discrimination in the job market, particularly against trans people, is widespread. PreparaNem came about to fight this marginalization through education — and it aims high. Most people who enter the program are either homeless or living in very precarious conditions, presenting very specific challenges. All classes are accompanied by meals, and part of the funding of the project goes simply to pay for public transportation to and from classes, which most students would not be able to afford. There are three centers in different regions of the cities, each with around 20 students every semester. All of the teachers are volunteers — a total of 165. So far, 38 students have managed to get into university, and another 20 are now in formal employment or technical courses.

Photo courtesy of Prepara Nem

4) Food

The activists of the Landless Movement (MST) have taken their struggle from rural farming settlements straight to the heart of the city center. Terra Crioula “Creole Land” is a space for small-scale farming collectives to sell their produce while bringing urban dwellers closer to the struggle for land reform.

The movement has a long and arduous history. Most of Brazil’s agriculture is dominated by monoculture. The latest study by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics concluded that 45 percent of Brazil’s rural land was in the hands of 0.9 percent of landowners. However, thousands of families have occupied unused land all over the country. None of the farmers use agro-toxins, and the food is sold at accessible prices, in stark contrast to high-end organic food fairs. In 2016, the space was recognized as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the city.

Photo by Pablo Vergara

5) Work and money

Casa Brota, or “Sprout House,” provides a space for entrepreneurs to work in the heart of one of Rio’s largest favela complexes. The house also hosts a monthly slam poetry night called “Slam Laje” and a variety of workshops and talks. These range from investments in crypto currencies and online content creation, to nutrition and self-care. The house sustains itself with boarding through Diaspora.Black and AirBnB, as well as contributions.

Interest in entrepreneurship in favelas is much higher than the general population: 46 to 23 percent. For Marcelo Magano, one of the founders of the space, entrepreneurship runs through the veins of the favelas: “It’s an inheritance we have gained since slavery, where black people have had to turn to entrepreneurship in order to survive.”

Photo courtesy of Casa Brota

6) Staying safe

You know those days when you are coming home from work thinking about what to make for dinner and you run into a military police operation happening on your doorstep? It might seem absurd to some, but this is the reality for millions of people who live in Rio de Janeiro. In the first 100 days of 2018, there were 2389 registered shootings in Greater Rio, with hundreds of people wounded and dead.

Fogo Cruzado, a collaborative data lab brings together information from collectives, individuals, news reports, and the police to create a map of gunfire incidents in real time, and help people dodge getting caught in the crossfire.

Header photo of Casa Brota/Sprout House by Katiana Tortorelli

The post These community groups are transforming Rio de Janeiro into a Sharing City appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The Favela as a Community Land Trust: A Solution to Eviction and Gentrification?

Shareable — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Cross-posted from RioOnWatch.

Though areas facing eviction threats may be safer if they hold land titles, with regards to gentrification, favelas with land titles are those most at risk. This is because by titling, favelas effectively enter the formal, market-rate, market (informal property markets are quite dynamic in Rio, but effectively create a parallel affordable market to the completely unregulated formal one that dominates the city). With rising property prices, poorer residents, even those with title, are forced to the outskirts of the city as they can no longer afford the rising cost of living generated around them. Though gentrification and displacement have slowed with the current economic crisis, they are expected to continue to exert pressure on favelas in the long-run.

In a city that lacks adequate quality public housing infrastructure, keeping favela neighborhoods affordable as they develop is thus crucial to the overall success of the city. Market-rate housing by definition does not meet the affordability demands of the bottom socio-economic tier (normally 20-30 percent) of a city’s population, so transferring favela housing to the formal market will not address the needs of that group — it will only displace them, causing new favelas to form. Socio-economic segregation leads to increased conflict, as we witness daily in Rio. And tension and unhappiness lower the quality of life.

So how to protect the desire of low-income favela residents to remain on their land, while giving them access to the benefits of owning property and the ability to accumulate wealth and access credit? Giving out individual land titles has long been the assumed method to gain these benefits, following this strategy’s popularization by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto in the 1990s.

However, much has been learned since then and this “consensus” is today subject to debate and exceptions. Though titling and documentation are incredibly helpful, the assumption that individual titles are the solution can be questioned, since with them comes a single-pointed focus on the individual inhabitants’ benefit, which may not align with maintaining neighborhood qualities and community benefits and may negatively affect other individuals, or him or herself, if consequences to community that impact individuals are not contemplated. Titling also causes local costs to rise and often forces existing residents — even those with title — out.

Aware of the affordability value and other benefits of favelas, Brazilian federal legislation was proactively passed to ensure these benefits persist through the federal Areas of Special Social Interest (AEIS) policy. Unfortunately, like many of Brazil’s well-intended policies, implementation has been largely ineffective in Rio. Locally implemented as Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS), the program is supposed to bring favela land into compliance with the law while preserving affordability and the built blueprint of these communities. Although this process had brought nearly 171 plots of land into compliance for nearly 120,000 people as of January 2014, if a favela is located in a highly desirable area, individual titling does not protect a community from being eroded by real estate speculation. Further, if property rights are not adequately enforced, there is a risk residents can be taken advantage of as they adjust to being title holders.

Another policy option available is the Community Land Trust, or CLT. A brief history of this policy option can be found here, but this text will focus on the specific logistical measures that could make CLTs a reality. In the United States, CLTs have been shown to be the most robust affordable housing policy solution in both market extremes — those of foreclosure and of speculation.

Communities must acquire land or designate it as a land trust

The first step in creating a CLT is to acquire the land. In most places introducing CLTs, this is the most difficult step because of the large capital costs of buying up private land. In favelas, however, this step is actually easier, since the land is already occupied, owned by the state, and at least in theory constitutionally protected for favela residents’ use based on need, through adverse possession after five years. And since the Special Zones of Social Interest are intended to help facilitate land compliance, Rio has at least some experience designating favelas in unique ways to guarantee they maintain their qualities including affordability. So one might be hopeful these conditions lead to a consideration of a CLT policy to maintain the affordability of favela homes and right to remain of favela residents. This would start with the transfer of state-owned land harboring favelas, to community-managed Community Land Trusts.

Residents in CLTs lease the land in the trust, but own the buildings

Having the land in a trust means the community owns the land as a whole. However, in order to allow residents to accumulate wealth, a CLT gives them ownership over the improvements they make to the land. This arrangement not only allows the community as a whole to benefit from increases in land value, but also lets individual homeowners benefit from investments and upgrades they make to their homes. Again, this arrangement shares some similarities with most favelas’ current situation: Residents don’t technically own the land they live on (even the “titles” given today are actually leases, often for 99 years, such as the ones given to Vila Autódromo in the 1990s which, unfortunately, we have all attested to their precariousness) and the primary form of investment is in the individual home. Under a CLT residents might thus be even more protected from forced eviction than through individual titles, because the land would be owned by the community and not the state or individuals, and thus could be protected by the community. And through a CLT model residents would also be kept safe from market speculation because the land is not owned by individuals and thus its value does not affect house price.

CLT membership and leadership

Leadership in a CLT is unique and important to its success. CLT community residents elect the leadership council for the trust. These volunteer boards may vary in size, but are entrusted with managing the day-to-day activities of the trust. CLT trusts are usually divided into thirds, where one-third of the trust leadership is residents from the CLT community, one-third is people from the neighborhood surrounding the CLT, and one-third is made up of technical experts and municipal officials who provide particular expertise (legal, architectural, engineering, political, etc.) and speak in the general public interest. This allocation is not set in stone for every CLT and a special policy could be designed specifically for favelas based on their needs. A CLT policy could mandate the addition of housing advocates to the trust, a requirement Rio already uses in its official housing policy.

Key to the CLT’s success is its mission. Each CLT establishes a mission which includes protecting the assets of their community. Traditionally, affordability and guaranteeing affordable housing is the number one goal of a CLT, meaning that new members are screened based on need. To guarantee this, it is the CLT that determines who buys into the community. This is done by mandating that residents selling their property do so to the CLT. The CLT has access to capital and buys the property at an agreed-to rate based on established tables. It then offers the housing to those on a waiting list who have passed its criteria (again, all established by the community). But a favela-based CLT may add other factors — beyond need — to determine who can buy in. For example, those with ties to the community, born and raised there, may have priority. Or those with strong cultural work in the community or other ties there. Or, for example, a favela with a strong vocation for funk may prioritize funk culture; one with a strong vocation for sustainability may prioritize those engaged in developing sustainable practices. And so on.

Key components to incorporate in CLTs

Community Land Trusts have been implemented around the world with structures that vary in many ways. However, there are some characteristics that must be included in order for a model to actually be considered a CLT model. These characteristics include:

Community control and ownership: Land and other assets must be managed, bought and sold in a way that benefits the overall community. There must be a high level of trust among members within the CLT for it to be successful.
An open and democratic structure: People who live and work in and around the area designated as a CLT should have the ability to join. The leadership of the CLT must also make an active effort to engage all relevant stakeholders in important community discussions.
Permanent affordability: CLTs, by definition, are a means of preserving a long-term community structure. Affordability must be preserved since it is a crucial component of a CLT.
Not-for-profit status: Any profits from the management of assets in a CLT should be reinvested in the CLT for the betterment of the community.
Long-term stewardship: A CLT continues regardless of whether individual homes that make it up are sold or rented.

Limitations to the CLT in favelas

The CLT has many beneficial features to protect the autonomy and affordability of favelas . However, there are key considerations to keep in mind if this option is considered as a policy in Rio. Assuming full ownership (which again, is rare in Rio’s favelas where instead leases are the preferred “titling” option), creating a CLT means giving up some of the autonomy of owning one’s own piece of land. This means some of the transactions that can normally be made with private land are unavailable to people in CLTs. It is important that CLT membership is voluntary and that residents are not forced into this arrangement.

Furthermore, CLTs are very different than traditional land titling methods that are currently more common in favelas. With this growing trend of titling, there is a greater likelihood that a community will already have some residents that have received a lease to their land. For residents who do have individual titles, it is important that they are compensated for their land if the land is incorporated into a CLT.

Article and images re-posted from RioOnWatch. This is the second in a series of three articles summarizing reports on Brazilian housing law, organized by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice at request of Catalytic Communities.

The second report, summarized in part below, with additional information compiled by Catalytic Communities’ team, was produced by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP. To read the actual report, click here. Full Series: Brazilian Housing Law Memos

The post The Favela as a Community Land Trust: A Solution to Eviction and Gentrification? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Solidarity Economy: Cooperative Development in Rio and Beyond

Shareable — Sun, 05 Mar 2017 11:00:00 +0000

Rio on Watch/Anna Cash: When one stops to consider Rio’s hundreds of favelas for their plurality, with a lens of recognizing assets instead of just highlighting problems, one common thread is clear: In the face of public neglect, favela residents are expert at doing things for themselves, many times coming together to do so collectively. There is even a word for this, gambiarra, a native Brazilian Tupi-Guarani word meaning ‘improvised solution.’

There are many examples of this in both consumption and labor: favelas have been practicing collective consumerism since their inception (and well before the “sharing economy” was trendy); favelas come together in mutirão collective work sessions for infrastructure upgrades, such as building sewerage systems or cleaning up abandoned lots; and favelados (favela residents) have come together in work collectives, such as the baking and skills sharing collective Mangarfo featured in the short documentary, “Here Is My Place.”

These grassroots collective economic practices are all examples of the “solidarity economy” that exists in favelas and in other communities all over Brazil and the world. Solidarity economy has many definitions but, most broadly, is both an umbrella term and a movement that seeks to promote alternative economic structures based on collective ownership and horizontal management instead of private ownership and hierarchical management. Such structures include community banks, credit unions, family agriculture, cooperative housing, barter clubs, consumer cooperatives, and worker cooperatives or collectives, most well-known in Brazil in the industries of recycling and crafts. The goal is to decentralize wealth, root wealth in communities, and financially and politically empower stakeholders participating in these structures toward another, more just, economy.

Much of solidarity economy ascribes to the seven principles of cooperativism:

Voluntary and free participation
Democratic management
Economic participation of members
Autonomy and independence
Education, training, and information
Cooperation among cooperatives
Interest in the community

Solidarity Economy Enterprises and Protagonists

Solidarity economic enterprises, or empreendimentos econômicos solidários (EESs), are at the heart of this movement. Such initiatives typically combine individuals excluded from the labor market, or moved by the initiatives’ ideology, in the search for collective alternative means of survival.

As Brazil’s former National Secretary of Solidarity Economy, Paul Singer (widely considered the father of the Brazilian solidarity economy movement), said in a public assembly in Porto Alegre last year: Solidarity economy is predominantly “spread by women, young people, the unemployed — by all of the victims of capitalism.”

The solidarity economy, blending the public sector, private sector, and third (civil society and philanthropic) sector, is one manifestation of a Brazilian development model where development beneficiaries take a more active role. A 2015 UNESCO Report describes how in Rio’s favelas there is a strong presence of social organizations that are “bottom-up, without outside intervention, motivated by people who were born, grew up, and continue living in favelas.”

Indeed, a common word used to described actors in the Brazilian solidarity economy is protagonistas, or protagonists, taking leading roles in their own lives. Notably, this language is not the “self-help” language that is common amongst many “community economic development” initiatives in the U.S. and in places like India, where initiatives that in some ways resemble solidarity economy can be observed with slightly different framing language.

Asset-based development experts Alison Mathie and Gord Cunningham frame producer cooperatives as an example of “group capacity-building,” which contrasts with “individual capacity-building.” Development projects that focus on individual capacity-building aim to improve the economic success of individuals (for example, microfinance clients), taking for granted that this will thereby lead to community economic development. However, the group capacity-building perspective sees collective action as an end in itself and development, thus, as an endogenous process. Notably, in such a framework, Mathie and Gord delineate the role of external agencies as a “facilitator of a process, and as a node in a widening network of connections the community may have with other actors.”

Solidarity Economy as Public Policy

The solidarity economy movement has had a high degree of ostensible political success in Brazil, in part because of the wave of unemployment in the 1990s, but also because of an existing strong labor movement. Brazil created not only a national Solidarity Economy Secretariat (SENAES), but also forums and councils at the metropolitan, municipal, state, and national levels. The Brazilian Forum of Solidarity Economy (FBES), brings together state and civil society actors nationally to discuss public policy for supporting solidarity economy.

However, despite apparent policy victories, the solidarity economy political infrastructure faces many challenges nationally. First, it is still logistically difficult for EESs to formalize in Brazil. Currently, the most common forms are informal groups, associations, and cooperatives. The Brazilian cooperative law was not created with solidarity economy cooperatives in mind. The cooperative form is subject to high rates of taxation, while the association legal form is broad, serving for non-revenue generating social projects along with work collectives. There is a national campaign for a solidarity economy legal form that is based on the internal logic of cooperatives and collectives that ascribe to the solidarity economy.

While informal economy and solidarity economy are not interchangeable terms, the current state of the Brazilian solidarity economy is very informal. Of all EESs in Brazil mapped through the SIES National Mapping project finalized in 2013, 31 percent of EESs are informal groups, 60 percent are associations, and 9 percent cooperatives. In Rio de Janeiro state, likely due to the relatively younger solidarity economy landscape, it is even more informal, as 68 percent of EESs are informal groups, 25 percent associations, and 6 percent cooperatives.

However, it is important to distinguish the solidarity economy from the informal economy for a couple of key reasons. First, to be a part of the informal economy does not mean that one is practicing solidarity economics based on principles of collective benefit. Secondly, the solidarity economy movement strives for formal recognition in order to be able to take advantages of the benefits traditional businesses receive. Formal recognition does not mean fitting EESs into existing purely profit-maximizing legal forms, but creating new ones that better fit with the logic of EESs, which seek to make returns to pay workers a fair wage and reinvest in the EES and, when possible, the community.

Rio’s Solidarity Economy

Since January 2009, Rio’s Special Secretariat of Solidarity Economic Development (SEDES) has been the first municipal secretariat dedicated to solidarity economy in Brazil. (In other Brazilian cities solidarity economy initiatives sit under departments of work and employment.) The secretariat’s objective, according to its official page is to “formulate and execute public policy designed to widen the market and democratize access to the economy of the city. Projects of local and solidarity economy development, based in associativism and collectivism, in self-management and productive networks, are the focus of SEDES.” The SEDES website goes on to explain that “networks of small businesses, cooperatives, productive arrangements, and poles of EESs” are “vectors of an intelligent and efficient strategy of confronting and overcoming social exclusion, unemployment, and precarious work in the world’s big cities.”

A large part of SEDES’ work has been to work towards certifying Rio as the first Latin American capital to be a Fair Trade Town. Mayor Eduardo Paes committed to five related goals: Create a coordinating committee of the campaign; declare support for and utilize products of fair trade in the public sector, for example by purchasing school lunches from local producers; support the placement of solidarity economy products in local markets; incentivize businesses in supporting and consuming these products, for example by utilizing uniforms made by solidarity economy entrepreneurs; and publicize the campaign in the media.

SEDES has also established goals to create two circuits of fairs in the city: Circuito Rio EcoSol, or Rio Solidarity Economy Circuit, which is a network of artisan fairs, and Circuito Carioca de Feiras Orgânicas, or Carioca Circuit of Organic Produce Fairs.

According to Ana Larronda Asti, Director of Solidarity Economy and Fair Trade at SEDES, the solidarity economy artisan fair circuit has an intentional focus on women who are residents of favelas and low-income communities. It is made up of 14 fairs around the city’s major poles, such that solidarity economy entrepreneurs have commercialization opportunities throughout each month.

Circuito Rio EcoSol locations include Complexo da Maré, Méier, and Manguinhos in the North Zone; Campo Grande, Paciência, and Santa Cruz in the West Zone; Freguesia in Jacarepaguá and Praça Saens Pena in Tijuca; Cinelândia, Praça Mauá, and São Cristóvão downtown; and Largo do Machado, Ipanema, and Leme in the South Zone.

As of June 2016, there were over 300 EESs participating. In order to participate, a group must have the legal form of association or popular cooperative, be in the business of production or commercialization, and have three or more people working for it. In addition, the group must be registered to CADSOL, the national registry for solidarity economy enterprises, and must confirm that its members have attended at least four municipal forum meetings, as well as undergone solidarity economy training from SEDES. Many of the EESs are organized into networks, facilitating collective commercialization.

Current Political Threats and Uncertainty

Unfortunately, given the political crisis at the federal level, SEDES is in a very vulnerable position. In late May, two-thirds of the 40-person staff were let go and the R$37 million budget was cut. The Special Secretariat at the time was without a boss and “without direction, in matters both strategic and practical.”

SEDES now has a new Secretary — Franklin Dias Coelho — but the agency’s status as a Special Secretariat means it was created by an action of Mayor Eduardo Paes and not by the City Council. Its special status therefore means that it can also be disbanded by the mayor as quickly as it was established. At the national level, the Solidarity Economy Secretariat is also undergoing changes that will dramatically alter its character, including the replacement in June of Secretary Paul Singer, who was a key figure in establishing the secretariat.

Solidarity economy entrepreneurs are now organizing politically to make SEDES into an institution that is permanently part of the municipal government. This year’s turmoil leaves them vulnerable given that the majority of the solidarity economy entrepreneurs’ income is dependent on the fairs and SEDES is responsible for helping to secure the public spaces where they are held. Some of the entrepreneurs at the fairs have been fighting for two decades for supportive public policy, such as the 2012 Solidarity Economy Law which defined terms for solidarity economy and established a Municipal Council in addition to SEDES, for civil society and public sector actors to dialogue. Many of the actors in this movement fear for their livelihoods, worried that their hard-earned victories could unravel in the current political context.

This is the first of a three-part series on solidarity economy in Brazil. With solidarity economy political infrastructure at risk, so too are the opportunities that EESs offer workers for increased quality of life and supportive spaces for women, as well as new forms of accessing rights, which will be the topics of the next two articles in the series.

Author Anna Cash conducted research on the solidarity economy as a platform for increasing social inclusion in 2015 in the greater Porto Alegre area, as part of a Fulbright Fellowship in partnership with the EcoSol Research Group at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos), and with the guidance of Professor Luiz Inácio Gaiger. She is currently a student in the Masters in City Planning program at University of California, Berkeley.

Article and images re-posted from RioOnWatch. Clique aqui para Português.

The post Solidarity Economy: Cooperative Development in Rio and Beyond appeared first on P2P Foundation.