Ô Culpa
The city of São Paulo, the largest urban center in the country, concentrates a total of more than 200 housing occupations that shelter more than 45 thousand families.
Started in 2019, this is an ongoing project that focuses intimately on the stories and conviviality of a housing occupation in São Paulo where approximately 35 families who do not own their homes - or who lost their homes for some reason - started to live in the same space under an overpass in the Bom Retiro neighborhood. The vitality of people amidst the adverse conditions, breaks the stereotypes of scarcity and vulnerability, letting the power of their voices flow and contrasting social paradigms with bright colors, creativity, and a lot of perseverance.
"Ô Culpa" comes from conceptual ambiguity in contrast to a sound affinity that exists at the core of the word guilt and the verb occupy - or occupation – (in Portuguese), dealing with a social issue that is a fundamental right.
On March 17th, 2020 (the beginning of the pandemic situation in the city), after all, requests for assistance had been denied by the public institutions, the military police and the public authorities proceeded with the eviction order and the removal of the families from the place. With the prior notice decreed by the police officializing the date of the action, the residents, trying to avoid a violent situation of confrontation, had already left and moved to another place. The demolition scenes and the sounds of the destruction of what had been the home for many families and was now falling apart were shocking to the eyes of those who left everything behind, who had that place as their only shelter.
A recurring problem with no resolution horizon, the housing shortage in the metropolitan region of São Paulo has broken a record, and the state of São Paulo currently has a housing deficit of around 1.8 million households. Since 2011, this deficit has more than doubled in size, growing at an average rate of 10% per year. The queue for popular housing exceeds 1 million subscribers, but the budget for these projects does not seem to cover the growing population that, without work or a support network, often ends up on the streets.
With the unemployment rate, a precarious public education, and a catastrophic lack of infrastructure and basic sanitation in the country, the essential conditions for a large part of the population to afford rent or even own a house become impracticable. An adequate housing policy planning to deal with this situation seems increasingly distant amid the political priorities of the city and the country, aggravating the situation into a cyclical problem of greater proportions and in which the result will be present and increasingly evident over the years.
Started in 2019, this is an ongoing project that focuses intimately on the stories and conviviality of a housing occupation in São Paulo where approximately 35 families who do not own their homes - or who lost their homes for some reason - started to live in the same space under an overpass in the Bom Retiro neighborhood. The vitality of people amidst the adverse conditions, breaks the stereotypes of scarcity and vulnerability, letting the power of their voices flow and contrasting social paradigms with bright colors, creativity, and a lot of perseverance.
"Ô Culpa" comes from conceptual ambiguity in contrast to a sound affinity that exists at the core of the word guilt and the verb occupy - or occupation – (in Portuguese), dealing with a social issue that is a fundamental right.
On March 17th, 2020 (the beginning of the pandemic situation in the city), after all, requests for assistance had been denied by the public institutions, the military police and the public authorities proceeded with the eviction order and the removal of the families from the place. With the prior notice decreed by the police officializing the date of the action, the residents, trying to avoid a violent situation of confrontation, had already left and moved to another place. The demolition scenes and the sounds of the destruction of what had been the home for many families and was now falling apart were shocking to the eyes of those who left everything behind, who had that place as their only shelter.
A recurring problem with no resolution horizon, the housing shortage in the metropolitan region of São Paulo has broken a record, and the state of São Paulo currently has a housing deficit of around 1.8 million households. Since 2011, this deficit has more than doubled in size, growing at an average rate of 10% per year. The queue for popular housing exceeds 1 million subscribers, but the budget for these projects does not seem to cover the growing population that, without work or a support network, often ends up on the streets.
With the unemployment rate, a precarious public education, and a catastrophic lack of infrastructure and basic sanitation in the country, the essential conditions for a large part of the population to afford rent or even own a house become impracticable. An adequate housing policy planning to deal with this situation seems increasingly distant amid the political priorities of the city and the country, aggravating the situation into a cyclical problem of greater proportions and in which the result will be present and increasingly evident over the years.
To be continued