Gentrification in Brazil’s major cities is making a live-in dignity nearly impossible for low-income families. In São Paulo, the organization FICA is introducing the concept of social landownership to counter the increasing wealth divide. FICA crowdfunds property in different ways and rents it at non-speculative prices. One of the projects is Jaragua 160, a house bought in june 2021 in the fast gentrifying garment district of Bom Retiro in São Paulo. The house will be inhabited by three families of migrant workers of the garment industry that are being organized in a cooperative, two of them led by single mothers. 
The families are used to shared spaces since they have a history of living in the neighborhoods´s cortiços (tenement houses), subletting rooms of bad quality at high prices with shared bathrooms, kitchens and laundry. But in this situation of forced sharing, it often means tension, gossip and fights.  Our challenge is to transform the status of shared spaces for the families, from lack of choice into choice. Once the families move, we will run a careful hearing and participatory design process will be done. The spaces will be transformed according to tenants needs and desires, resulting in a building where sharing means joy and pleasure. 

Jaraguá160 is part of a bigger project developed by FICA in Brazil. Through impact investment, which allows reaching a faster pace of fundraising resources for buying houses, FICA intends to withdraw real estate units from the speculative market and offer healthy and quality housing. Besides that, a huge improvement to the tenants (most of them women, preferably) would be the existence of a formal contract of house rent. By the end of 2022, FICA is compromised with having 10 families living in their properties, all of them originally from tenements context. 

Jaraguá160 will be a reference point and anchor of a comprehensive project to making housing viable for the entire community, as it will function as an organization model and horizon of possibilities. From the functional and architecture point of view, Jaraguá160 will be a lab for solutions regarding small and shared spaces, as the common spaces are shared not only by other individuals, but by other families. 

FICA (Association for Community Property) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization whose objective is to provide housing in downtown São Paulo with affordable rents for low-income families. Founded in 2015, it created the figure of the social owner (social landlord) in Brazil, an actor that did not exist until then.
The institution is recognized for its knowledge of alternative ownership models and expertise in social and affordable rental. Through partnerships, it has sought solutions for improvements and interventions in tenements, precarious and overcrowded housing, where the abusive rent paid by tenants fuels the vicious cycle of precariousness and violation of rights. Website: www.fundofica.org

The future tenants of Jaraguá160 are part of the seamstresses' cooperative that is being hosted and developed at Casa do Povo, a cultural center in Bom Retiro district (same neighbourhood of Jaraguá 160 house). While Casa do Povo is working with the seamstresses so they can own their work and get rid of exploitation from garment industry middlemen, FICA would provide the same independence in the housing issue, setting the tenements' middleman aside. 

FICA and Casa do Povo held a fundraising campaing together during the pandemic in 2020 called FICAemCasa.

FICA's website