The collapse of the Wilton Paes de Almeida Building on May 1, 2018, exposed a glaring housing emergency. Compounding the cuts in public funding for the sector, in São Paulo alone during 2017, at least 14,000 families were evicted from their homes, and at least another 30,000 face displacement due to public works projects, according to the Eviction Observatory of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU/USP).
For every family forced from their home, the city administration provides a rent subsidy of R$ 400. Currently, according to the Municipal Housing Secretariat, 30,000 families receive this benefit. However, this amount is typically insufficient to cover rent in the central region, where most of these families are already established. Consequently, when they choose to remain in the same neighborhood to stay close to their jobs and their children's schools, these families often end up in informal occupations or favelas.
According to the 2010 Census, São Paulo has more than 30,000 properties in central districts that could be repurposed for social housing. Many publicly owned properties, such as the Wilton Paes de Almeida Building, originally came into government hands due to unpaid debts from private organizations—often transferred through the National Social Security Institute (INSS) or the bankruptcy estates of defunct enterprises like the Federal Railway Network. The challenge is that selling or donating these properties often exposes public administrators to scrutiny from the Court of Accounts or the Public Prosecutor's Office. They face questions like: how can public assets be sold below market value? How can a property intended to settle a debt simply be donated? This complex legal entanglement means that when these properties are put up for sale, they rarely fetch their appraised value. Furthermore, donating them to social housing programs remains incredibly difficult.
