The occupation areas of the Tatuquara neighborhood, in Curitiba, will carry out, this Tuesday (14th), at 9 am, a walk for housing and against forced evictions, starting with the Britanite occupation (Rua Antônio Zanon, 190). They hope to deliver the agenda to public bodies, in the presence of parliamentary mandates, popular organizations and with the support of the Zero Eviction campaign.
The more than a thousand families that inhabit the Britanite, Vila União, Ilha and Pontarola areas march to get out of the wrong way. According to the movement, although the political moment is favorable to housing policies in Brazil, the occupations have encountered difficulties with landowners and due to “the public power’s omission to intervene in land conflicts”.
Redemptorist priest Joaquim Parron, who works in the region and has great support from the communities, explains the reason for the demonstration. “The purpose is to get the support of society and for the authorities to be open to dialogue, because we cannot put more than 1,000 families on the streets. So, it is an urgent issue”, he calls out.
Scratchs
In common between the areas, families depend on the places where they live, build a community life, receive support from various civil society entities, a fact recognized even by the Land Conflicts Commission of the Court of Justice of Paraná. They are rooted and do not want to leave, even because the government does not present a consistent relocation plan for them.
In Curitiba and region, other areas, such as Tiradentes 2, Independência Popular, Guaporé 2, Vila Domitila, Jardim Graciosa (Pinhais), Independência (São José), among others, are also at risk of evictions, a situation that the popular march also intends to expose.
Britanite’s coordinator, Hemerson Reis says that emergencies are not limited to just one area. “The risk of eviction is not only ours, but several other areas, which will walk alongside us on that date. With a single agenda, we want to stay! It will be the opportune moment for us to show our demands and agendas”, he summons.
According to teacher Márcia Regina da Silva, from the coordination of Vila União, it is necessary to be concerned with the situation of children in the communities. “The government has to give us an answer, because we cannot put families with children on the street, or at a relative’s house, which is a cubicle. How to evict an already consolidated family?”, She reflects.
Britanite, Vila União, Ilha, Pantarola and other areas take a walk in the neighborhood on August 15th (Tuesday) / Art: Francine Alvarenga
Situation between abandonment and the social function of the land
Britanite is made up of 407 families, in occupation that started in December 2020, in the period of serious social crisis of the covid-19 pandemic. The area belongs to Tatuquara SA and residents are willing to negotiate values with the company.
“Britanite has a repossession order, which presents a plan to carry it out, with the participation of the municipality and public bodies. The community questions the plan, as the occupation has undergone many changes since the date it was presented, on September 21, 2021, prior to the STF decision that established criteria for repossession of collective occupations. And, now, we know that public bodies do not have such condition to comply with them”, explains Bárbara Esteche, lawyer of Britanite and Vila União.
Vila União covers 300 families, since May 2021, on land owned by the company MDR SA Administração e Participação, which has real estate activity as one of its objectives.
In the case of Vila União, explains Esteche, at the beginning of the occupation, in May 2021, the property was abandoned and with tax debts. The company filed a repossession action against the occupants, for their forced removal from the area. “The judicial decision of repossession was annulled in the Court of Justice and the process entered the conciliation stage intermediated by Cejusc Fundiário. However, in a conciliatory hearing, the MDR representative opposed the search for a mediated solution”, explains Esteche. “With that, the process will be forwarded to a judicial decision, which will decide on the lives of all the families that have established housing there”, he says.
The Ilha community, which has been installed in Tatuquara for over ten years, has 165 families and currently wants information on how the relocation process will be carried out, scheduled for a period of two years. The population wants guarantee and formalization by the municipality. In turn, the Pontarola occupation has a demand for better asphalt structure, improvement in houses and land tenure regularization.
Ilha Community / Pedro Carrano
“United people, strong people”
Since the last judicial sentence in the Britanite case, determining repossession, communities and organizations such as the Workers Organization Front (FORT), have taken the cause of the occupations of Tatuquara to public bodies, from the Legislative to the Judiciary. A delegation of residents and popular leaders visited the General Superintendence of Dialogue and Social Interaction (SUDIS), in addition to several meetings with the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Communities, in the figure of Régis Rogério Vicente Sartori, with the Operational Support Center of the Public Prosecutors’ Justice for the Protection of Human Rights, in the figure of Olympio Sotto Maior Neto, as well as the agenda of the areas was handed over to Santin Roveda, Secretary of State for the government of Paraná, and to the vice-governor, Darci Piana, among other bodies.
According to Rosângela Reis, coordinator of Britanite and FORT, the motto “United People, Strong People”, speaks of a construction aimed at mobilization, strengthening of organization, communication and popular struggle. “A strong people is a people who really fight to seek their goals. It’s not because we live in an occupation that we are weak. FORT is fortress. So all this we want what? Uniting communities, these people, FORT is unity, it was through strength, through knowledge, that we learn every day”, she says.
Families depend on where they live, build a community life, receive support from various civil society organizations / Pedro Carrano
Guidelines of the Federal Supreme Court
The guidelines of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), between 2021 and December 2022, on not carrying out forced evictions, was essential to preserve at least 167 thousand families across the country. During the pandemic period alone, occupations involved around 4,000 families and 14 areas in Curitiba and region, according to the Zero Eviction campaign. In 2023, however, the feeling is of serious insecurity.
On the one hand, difficulties. On the other hand, there are ways. Members of the Zero Eviction campaign point to the achievement of the MPM’s Nova Esperança occupation, in Campo Magro, in which 1,200 families are no longer at risk of repossession in public areas.
Overall, Curitiba’s exclusionary urbanism has almost 104,000 vacant homes according to the 2022 Population Census. At the same time, according to the Paraná Housing Company (Cohapar), 400,000 families are in line for the company’s housing programs. The Curitiba Housing Company (Cohab) has a queue of more than 50,000 families.
Service:
Popular Walk for Housing and against Evictions
Date: August 15 (Tuesday).
Gathering: 8 am
Start of the Walk at 9 am. Britanite Occupation, Rua Antônio Zanon 190. Tatuquara.
Audience: At Tatuquara Regional, at 10am.
Vila União Community / Giorgia Prates
Source: BdF Paraná
Editing: Rodrigo Chagas and Frédi Vasconcelos
