Social Leasing: housing provision strategy for the low-income population
social leasing; housing provision; housing policy; social housing
The social housing policies practiced in Brazil have a single alternative for housing provision: construction of housing units for subsidized sale, which characterizes a treatment of housing as a consumer good, as it is associated with the conquest of property. Over the years, this practice has not been able to meet all the housing demand for the low-income population, causing huge queues waiting for homes, encouraging irregular occupation of urban land and maintaining a population living on rent in the private market of outlying subdivisions or in existing informal settlements, in which the government does not act to regulate by mitigating prices for low-income families. On the other hand, social leasing, despite being present in some Brazilian housing plans as an alternative to housing, is still not a widespread policy in Brazil, and its adoption is a change in the perception of housing that is treated as a public service offered. by the state. It was included in the National Housing Policy in 2004, as a result of the vision of technicians in the sector who envisioned for Brazil the results obtained with its application at the international level, where it manages to serve a greater number of people while dialoguing with the policy of urban development. Eighteen years later, this alternative is without greater adherence to the practice of different housing producers and promoters in Brazil. The research focuses on the institutional and normative conditions that lead the different agents involved in housing not to mobilize for its adoption in the country vis a vis what happens in the international experience. The discussion began with a conceptual and theoretical review of social housing, relating it to a consumer good or a service and considering the difficulties of new housing strategies due to the culture of home ownership. It continued with the construction of analysis procedures based on the experiences of social leasing in France, England and the United States, evaluating the intervening agents and observing the strategies and actions capable of promoting the successes and/or obstacles of each social leasing program. It was also observed the actors participating in the production process of Brazilian social housing and the overview of the social rental policy in Brazil, studying the municipalities that contemplate it and what has been done for its implementation. The Social Lease Program in the city of São Paulo was considered for study in Brazil, which has a higher degree of implementation, where the entire network of agents present in the various stages of the program was identified, in addition to its characteristics, actions and urban insertion, in order to contrast the findings with the analysis procedures structured from one of the international experiences: the HLM Program in France. There were several results obtained in terms of learning for the design of a successful program of social rental, highlighting the fact that here, in Brazil, we notice the exclusive presence of public agents, the State, developing the same promotion/regulation functions , management, operation and financing of the program. A different fact occurs in France, where the State has only the functions of regulating/promoting and, sometimes, financing social leasing, while social entities and/or private builders are left with the functions of producing and managing housing units. In this regulatory role, there is also a strong articulation between housing and urban policies, promoting a good insertion of housing in the city structure and supporting urban revitalization projects.