Thousands of families evicted in Brazil amid pandemic

SAO PAULO (AP) — Jussara de Jesus never thought that her family would live in a shack.

But work as a hairdresser dried for up after the novel coronavirus hit Brazilian metropolis Sao Paulo.

She couldn’t afford $150 a month in rent for the small house where she and her three children lived.

Three months ago, they were evicted.

They moved to Jardim Julieta, one of Brazil’s newest favelas, or shantytowns.

With more than 800 shacks of wood and plastic sheeting, there are already several thousand people living in what used to be a parking lot for trucks in one of the poorest areas of the city.

“We didn’t even have the means to build the shack. We came with some plastic sheets,” de Jesus said.

The growing number of evictions driven by Brazil’s COVID-19 pandemic is worsening an already serious housing problem in the country.

Before the pandemic, local authorities counted more than 200,000 families waiting for adequate housing in Sao Paulo, a city of 12 million.

Human rights group LabCidade estimates more than 2,000 families have lost their homes in Sao Paulo state since March, with another 1,000 facing the same risk in upcoming weeks.

It is a high figure for a state with 46 million residents, about the same population as Spain.

Judges, mayors and, realtors and landlords have often ignored pleads to suspend rent due to the virus, despite requests from prosecutors and human rights groups. Congress passed a bill to address the issue in June, but it was vetoed by President Jair Bolsonaro. Not even moving into a favela assures residents will have shelter for now, since police can still force them out.

Sao Paulo state is the epicentre of pandemic in Brazil, with more than 20,000 fatalities of the country’s 82,000.

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