For the first time in its history, Rio de Janeiro is drafting a Municipal Plan for Social Interest Housing (PMHISby its Portuguese acronym). In November, as the PMHIS entered its final stage of development, a cross-community movement called the Popular Council launched a public campaign for the plan to embrace key community demands that tackle the city’s socio-spatial inequalities.
Despite Rio de Janeiro’s chronic housing problems—including a housing deficit surpassing 200,000 units, according to City Hall—the city has never had a housing plan, revealing how disinterested public authorities have been in responding to this need. The void has long been denounced by urban social movementswhich have been pressuring City Hall for an effective housing policy, beyond temporary programs such as social rent or federal initiatives such as the My House My Life housing program (MCMVby its Portuguese acronym).
In March 2025, Rio’s Municipal Housing Secretariat (SMH) announced the development of a local plan for social interest housing. The announcement follows a guideline set twenty years ago by the federal government via Law 11,124/2005which established the National System and Fund for Social Interest Housing and requires municipalities to create local plans in order to access the fund’s resources.
In Rio de Janeiro, the federal legislation was only regulated in 2019, when the municipality committed to drafting its plan through an inclusive process with active civil society participation. The plan is meant to guide the city’s housing policy over the next eight years.
The process of drafting the PMHIS moved forward in 2025. The secretariat responsible held public consultations, thematic seminars, hearings, internal meetings of the managing council and other initiatives aimed at enabling civil society actors—especially grassroots movements, research agencies and social organizations—to weigh in. Despite the spaces created, low public participation became evident over the course of the process, as did uncertainty about how community demands were—or were not—being incorporated into the plan. These issues drew criticism from actors involved, culminating, in November, in the Popular Council’s launch of a public campaign.
Created during the cycle of mega-events hosted in Rio de Janeiro—when over 20,000 families were forcibly evicted from their homes—the Popular Council emerged with a shared agenda: fighting forced evictions and defending the right to housing in the city. It is made up of various community leaders from Rio de Janeiro’s favelas and peripheries, as well as technical allies, and has since been working to defend residents’ right to remain in their homes.
The Popular Council’s demands were shaped during plenaries held every month at the headquarters of the Favelas Pastoral Committee XXXConfirmPastoralInEnglishThisWay housed in Rio’s Catholic Archdiocese. Key demands include increasing the housing budget to at least 1% of the city’s total revenue—considered the minimum for an effective housing policy—and creating a municipal program to produce social interest housing, so the city does not rely solely on federal programs such as MCMV. The Popular Council is pushing for these demands to be included in the PMHIS.
The Council also defends establishing housing rehabilitation programs, self-managed housing, the use of underutilized public properties for affordable housing, mapping the city’s Areas of Special Social Interest (AEIS) and effective urban and land regularization in favelas. Taken together, the proposals reflect a broad view of the housing issue, which must be addressed through a range of measures.
Another demand calls for implementing the Community Land Trust (CLT) model in Rio de Janeiro: an urban planning instrument included in the city’s Master Plan XXXConfirmLinkToCLTInPlan that seeks to guarantee the right to remain of communities in their neighborhoods—curbing real estate speculation and gentrification—and to ensure an affordable housing stock in the city. The CLT was widely discussed during the PMHIS public hearings and thematic seminars, defended by several actors involved in drafting the document and mentioned in City Hall’s assessment.
Ensuring meaningful popular participation is essential in this final stage of drafting Rio de Janeiro’s first housing plan. The campaign led by the Popular Council is a democratic movement defending people’s right to have their voices heard and respected in decisions that affect the places where they live. It is a defense of the right to the city. It is necessary to break with a policymaking logic that keeps civil society at a distance, treating residents merely as a check box of consultation rather than as actors in deliberation and decision-making. To address the housing issue in Rio de Janeiro, the demands of those who experience and fight, day after day, for the realization of the right to adequate housing must be taken into account.
Below are the nine demands put forward by the Popular Council for Rio de Janeiro’s first Social Interest Housing Plan:
- Increase Municipal Investment in Housing to 1% of the Budget
Faced with a severe housing deficit of around 200,000 units (approximately 8% of all households), the city must prioritize housing. Although the total 2026 budget amounts to R$52.4 billion (~US$9.65 billion), the current plan allocates only 0.73% (R$382.9 million or ~US$70.58 million) to housing. We believe the minimum required to enable an effective housing policy is allocating 1% of the budget, or R$524 million (~US$96.59 million).
This demand has broad support, having been approved by consensus across all sectors—grassroots groups, business representatives, unions, professional associations and the municipal government—during the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Conference on Cities. Allocating 1% of the municipal budget, not counting external funds (state, federal and international), is the essential starting point to begin addressing this crucial challenge.
- Municipal Plan for Social Interest Housing: The Urgency of Production
The greatest challenge in housing policy is meeting the demand of low-income populations for affordable housing—an area where municipal production has historically been virtually nonexistent. To fulfill its constitutional responsibility—housing is a shared duty of the federal, state and municipal governments (1988 Federal Constitution, Article 23, Item IX)—the City must immediately take the lead on housing production. We propose that 40% of funds from the Municipal Plan for Social Interest Housing (PMHIS), equivalent to R$209.6 million (~US$38.63 million), be allocated to building new homes. This allocation aims to reach the goal of constructing at least 1,000 municipal housing units per year, serving as an essential complement to existing programs such as the federal My House My Life housing program.
- Municipal Program for Technical Assistance for Social Interest Housing (ATHIS): Ensuring Technical Support
To strengthen housing policy and support favelas, it is essential to create a Municipal Program for Technical Assistance for Social Interest Housing (ATHIS). This program should be immediately anchored in Municipal Law No. 6,614 of 2019, which already establishes the right to technical assistance. We propose allocating at least 1% of PMHIS funds (R$5.24 million or ~US$965,900) to this purpose. This amount will be used to hire qualified technical teams to develop full executive projects. The objective is both ambitious and necessary: to reach the goal of producing at least 15 social-interest housing projects per year, guaranteeing quality technical support for low-income communities.
- Program for Consolidating Occupations: Immediate, Agreed-Upon Actions
The Program for Consolidating Occupations must be established urgently, given the City’s official acknowledgment of these areas in its own assessment. We propose allocating 6% of PMHIS funds (R$31.44 million or ~US$5.80 million) to this crucial objective. The goal is clear: to upgrade at least six occupations over a two-year period. To ensure the transparency and legitimacy of the process, the criteria for selecting which occupations will be included must be agreed upon and defined through a parity commission specifically created for this purpose.
- Self-Managed Housing Program: Empowerment and Production
The Self-Managed Housing Program aims to empower low-income families by allowing them to take control of the housing construction process. Self-management is a model in which families, organized in associations or cooperatives, realize and oversee the building of their homes—managing the project, funding and construction itself. This program will be financed through funds associated with other housing or renovation support programs. The central goal of the Self-Managed Housing Program is to deliver 200 housing units per year.
- Repurposing of Abandoned Properties for Social Interest Housing
Abandoned public properties must be immediately repurposed for Social Interest Housing through production or renovation programs. The first step is to designate these properties as Special Areas of Social Interest for Urban Voids (AEIS 2).
PMHIS Targets:
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- Designation: Map and designate all underutilized municipal properties as AEIS 2 by the end of the first year of PMHIS implementation.
- Production: Repurpose and build 100 housing units per year in these areas.
- Comprehensive Mapping: Map and identify abandoned properties owned by private entities or other levels of government by the end of the second year of PMHIS implementation.
- Comprehensive Mapping of Areas of Special Social Interest (AEIS)
It is essential to define and comprehensively map all types of AEIS in the municipality (AEIS 1, AEIS 2 and AEIS 3).
Target: Complete the mapping of all AEIS by the end of the first year of PMHIS implementation.
The process must incorporate the evaluation of all AEIS proposals submitted during the drafting of the PMHIS.
- Full Land Regularization and Upgrading
Ensure that upgrading is carried out respecting the principle of non-eviction established in the Municipal Organic Lawas well as in the city’s Master Plan, consolidating the right to housing through full land regularization.
- Encourage the Use of the Community Land Trusts in the Municipality
Aimed at guaranteeing security of tenure for favelas and preserving affordable housing, the Community Land Trust is an instrument included in the Master Plan. The city should encourage the implementation of CLTs, facilitating their adoption in land regularization processes and new housing developments, with a target of implementing one CLT every two years during the PMHIS period.