The trajectory of social housing policy in Brazil: From the National Housing Bank to the Ministry of the Cities

This paper discusses social housing policy in Brazil since the 1990s by analyzing government programs’ institutional arrangements, their sources of revenues and the formatting of related financial systems. The conclusion suggests that all these arrangements have not constituted a comprehensive housing policy with the clear aim of serving to enhance housing conditions in the country. Housing ‘policies’ since the 1990s – as proposed by Fernando Collor de Mello, Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and ´ Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s governments (in the latter case, despite much progress towards subsidized investment programs) – have sought to consolidate financial instruments in line with global markets, restructuring the way private interests operate within the system, a necessary however incomplete course of action. Different from rhetoric, this has resulted in failure as the more fundamental social results for the poor have not yet been achieved.

"Do alto da colina" - a província do Rio Grande do Norte, o comércio, os rios Potengi e Jundiaí e o complexo comercial do Guarapes 1850 - 1900

The commercial complex Guarapes was during the second half of the nineteenth century most commercial street of Rio Grande do Norte province. In that time frame, you can see its flourishing as one of the central places of trade in the province in 1850, and its subsequent abandonment in 1900. This thesis aims to investigate, in its first part, the paths that help to understand, as the context of the expansion of global markets in the second half of the nineteenth century enabled the conditions for the emergence of the commercial complex. However, trade relations established in this province through the commercial complex, even participating in this global environment, reserved particular characteristics in their social and trade relations, as if dealing with a peripheral province, we look at the uniqueness of the relationship occurred in this space. In the second part, we seek to understand the importance that the rivers Potengi and Jundiaí had to install the commercial complex Guarapes in the second half of the nineteenth century. As the geographical position in relation to rivers, enabled this space became flow zone and confluence of goods distributed to the various parts of the interior of the province. We also monitor the process that made these rivers leave the role of mobility and transport relations in this space, giving way the railways and roads shooting. In the third part, we seek to understand the commercial complex Guarapes in focus. Analyzing their spatial distribution on the landscape, and how the spatial organization held at the same time traces of the Brazilian patriarchy exposed by Gilberto Freyre, but also "modern" features, due to the increase of a new culture inserted material in the province. We also seek to understand elements of material culture that was the environment of the complex, and how these materials are important sources for understanding this society under study. We treat from the biggest to the smallest fragments without hierarchize them. Understanding that, the study associated the written sources and materials provide a gain in understanding of everyday these people who lived in that area of the complex in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The trajectory of social housing policy in Brazil: From the National Housing Bank to the Ministry of the Cities

This paper discusses social housing policy in Brazil since the 1990s by analyzing government programs’ institutional arrangements, their sources of revenues and the formatting of related financial systems. The conclusion suggests that all these arrangements have not constituted a comprehensive housing policy with the clear aim of serving to enhance housing conditions in the country. Housing ‘policies’ since the 1990s – as proposed by Fernando Collor de Mello, Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and ´ Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s governments (in the latter case, despite much progress towards subsidized investment programs) – have sought to consolidate financial instruments in line with global markets, restructuring the way private interests operate within the system, a necessary however incomplete course of action. Different from rhetoric, this has resulted in failure as the more fundamental social results for the poor have not yet been achieved.