Questions about Community Development in Favelas

Anyone who’s been to Rio de Janeiro has seen favelas. These are shanty slums built on otherwise unoccupied land, and in Rio they climb the mountainsides at seemingly impossible angles.  The ongoing move from smaller cities to larger in search of better opportunities — or mere survival — spurs the continued birth of new slums.  What can be done, or even should be done, to help the poor in these neighborhoods?

Sometimes people forget that these shanties were built on someone else’s property and that officially legitimizing them by putting them on the grid (utilities, schools, roads, etc) may encourage more land invasions. At the same time, folks in these slums are poor for a reason, and in my observation for the most part drugs and laziness are not the primary factors.

First, two questions must be asked about any favela neighborhood in Brazil.  ”Is it safe,” and “Is it legal?”

The above video illustrates the type of tragedy that can occur when people build on unstable land not prepared for human habitation. In the video you see the results of a mudslide following intense and sustained rainfall in Niteroi, a major city in the greater Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area. The homes were built, without title to any land, on a “hill” that in fact was an unofficial dump up until 1981. People started moving onto the available space shortly after the dump was closed and covered over with dirt. In recent years local specialists warned that there were toxic substances in the sub-soil, but to no avail. When the rains fell and completely saturated the ground, the results were devastating.

The second question, regarding legality, is somewhat more sensitive. It’s easy for relatively affluent North American Christians to show up and criticize the fact that people are essentially living on stolen property. They may have built the homes, but the land underneath was never theirs. It may belong either to some level of government (municipal is most likely) or a private landowner. In either case, even without any documentation proving ownership, homeowners living in these conditions may feel justified in thinking they have a claim to the land. It was typically idle when they came upon it, neither inhabited nor in agriculture, so they think something along the lines of “finders keepers.” Then, after the community’s been there for a while, usually hacked into the utility grid, the city comes along with a program and sets up legal connections power and water, even without the residents being legally on the property. When this happens the impression of permanence is given.

Although I lived nearly three years in Brazil and was engaged in mission work while there, I was nowhere near the favelas.  Also, my work didn’t focus as much then on community development then as it would now, were I to have the chance.  That being the case, I’d like to open the floor and invite comments from those actively working to improve the lives of people in Brazilian slums.  Whether you self-identify as “Christian” or not, if you are a community activist/organizer/developer in Brazil, please have your say.  What do you think about the situation of the slums in general, at-risk “irregular” residential areas in particular, and the government’s treatment of these communities?  Also, please try to comment in English if you want your response to be understood by most other readers.

At this point, all I can say is that both the systemic ills need to be addressed as well as the physical/educational/emotional/spiritual concerns of the poor.

What do you think?