Poor Resident of Wealthy Neighborhood in São Paulo Goes Shopping in the Slum

08/04/2015 - 08h58

The housewife Quitéria da Silva, 50, lives in a duplex on one of the most expensive corners of São Paulo, between avenues Luis Carlos Berrini and Jornalista Roberto Marinho. But to make her monthly shopping, she travels 4.5 kilometers to the slum Paraisópolis.

"It´s not possible to buy anything in the Berrini markets. They are very expensive", she says, at the COHAB condo, which has 252 families in Brooklin (south zone).

Housing projects like hers, in rich neighborhoods, will be increasingly common in São Paulo if the Master Plan, approved in 2014, survives the opposite lobby in the House.

The plan, which sets out guidelines for the city growth, proposes an 8% increase of the areas that can receive affordable housing -the Zeis (special zones of social interest, for its acronym in Portuguese).

Neighborhood associations try to bar them, arguing that these buildings devalue local real estate. But for the housing residents, the problem lies elsewhere.

"There's no popular brand in their markets", Francisca Nascimento, 53, a manicure expert, says.

In the view of Bruno Miragaia, a public defender who has been engaged in the housing area since 2007, affordable housing in prime areas allows people to be near their jobs and reduces segregation.

Nevertheless, he recognizes the barrier of local shops and services, "all of them totally directed to the upper class".

For its part, the administration of Mayor Fernando Haddad (PT) argues that the cost can be offset by a lower spending on transportation.

In Brooklyn, the housewife Quitéria recognizes the inconvenience of the "cost Berrini" but she doesn´t think of leaving her 50 m² in the region.

For this duplex in Berrini, she pays R$ 120 (approximately U$ 35) a month and an additional R$ 90 (U$ 26) of condominium expenses, less than half the cheapest day at the Grand Hyatt hotel, less than 500 meters away.

Translated by DENISE MOTA

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