Activists in Brazil are taking on the housing crisis through mass-occupations. Richard Matoušek reports from São Paulo on how the formidable movement is building popular power to provide secure homes.
Homelessness came suddenly to Claudia Garcez. After experiencing violence from a partner she moved out with her two kids. ‘I thought, damn,’ she explains, ‘there’s nowhere to go.’
Following a lengthy search of São Paulo properties within her budget, she found an agent who let her a flat. ‘I passed the deposit onto him,’ she says. ‘But when the landlady arrived and saw I had kids, she handed me back the money in front of him. I was humiliated.’
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