| The Sao Paulo homeless movement, which started in the early 1990s with the support of the housing group ‘Apoio’, is different from the country side landless movement because it’s much less ideological. Even though some are linked to the Workers Party and other leftist branches, they want just homes, no revolution, according to recent militant interviews conducted by sociologists for their masters courses. From these humble beginning in the city East zone, twelve organizations spread which anchor 13 thousand families all around. Brazilian inequalities are justly famous: Sao Paulo has a housing deficit which some estimate at 7,9 million units. And there are around 400 thousand empty apartment and houses distributed mostly in deteriorated areas, which shows both the poverty size and the potential growth for the homeless movement. Their ambitious plan for 2009 is to conquer national presence. The majority of citizens engaged in the movements are from Brazil’s North and Northeast, added to other South American countries which elected Sao Paulo as their port to prosperity. Sao Paulo’s homeless live with a constant dilemma: if they pay the rent, they don’t eat; if they eat, they can’t pay the rent. Most of the homeless have part time, unprotected jobs in Sao Paulo’s informal economy; they are selling stuff along the shantytowns. As the global credit crisis is expected to hit Brazil harder in the second half on 2009, Sao Paulo’s 13.000 organized homeless families are expected to grow exponentially. Brazil’s popular housing construction segment, which just started with some government support in 2006, stopped with the global crisis together with the growth of homeless families. Brazil has a very particular form of racism and is definitely not a subject Brazilians enjoy talking about because generally they don’t consider themselves racists, maybe because they are used to mixed races for centuries, and black or mixed skin color is also seem as beautiful. However, white militants from the richer South and Southeast part of the country are a blatant minority among the homeless which only confirms its ‘hidden racism’ that can be easily seen through the country’s social structure. ‘Citizen X’ is a name for thousands of people who live in the margins of Brazilian society. [J.B.] |
Julio Bittencourt est né en 1980 au Brésil. Son travail a été exposé dans des nombreuses galeries et musées de par le monde et publié dans des périodiques comme GEO, National Geographic, Le Monde, The Guardian, Esquire, Photo, Stern et Leica World Magazine. Son premier livre “Numa janela do edifício Prestes Maia 911” est le résultat de trois ans de travail à l'intérieur d'une des plus grandes occupations verticales d'Amérique Latine. Il a reçu le prix Leica Oskar Barnack et le Portfolio Pick Review (Aperture Foundation) en 2007, le prix de la Fundação Conrado Wessel en 2006 et 2008 et le 3e Prix New Holland en 2006. Habitant à São Paulo, il travaille depuis 2006 pour des revues, journaux et agences de publicité, au Brésil, aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et au Japon, en plus de développer ses projets d'auteur. contacter l'auteur |