The housing situation in Brazil is worrying. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in its 2022 Census, reports that there are around 16 million people living in more than 11 thousand favelas in the country. Furthermore, more than 236 thousand people live on the streets of Brazilian cities. The housing deficit reaches 6 million units and more than 5 million homes are irregular – they are houses in slums, squatters, communities and irregular subdivisions without access to basic sanitation and electricity. At least 1 in every thousand Brazilians has nowhere to live.

To minimize the problem, states and city halls find support in Federal Law No. 13,465/2017, which establishes Urban Land Regularization (Reurb). This is a comprehensive process, which involves legal, urban planning, environmental and social measures. The legislation extends, in particular, to areas predominantly occupied by low-income populations, through the Urban Land Regularization of Social Interest (Reurb-S).

IEME Brasil has long worked with land regularization in São Paulo, supporting the Secretariat of Urban Development and Housing of the State of São Paulo, through the Cidade Legal Program, providing advice to more than 95 partner municipalities, in addition to the Municipal Secretariat of Housing of São Paulo (SEHAB) and several city halls, such as the cities of São Bernardo do Campo, Mauá, Suzano, Guarulhos and Itaquaquecetuba. In these projects, it applies its knowledge about possible urban planning and legal alternatives to effectively fix communities in their place of residence, being identified as one of the companies specialized in developing projects aimed at recognizing the right to decent housing.

About Reurb

In the legal aspect, Reurb seeks to guarantee property title to occupants of informal urban areas and, consequently, security and legal stability in possession of the property, as well as other rights arising from this regularization. The urban measures in the process aim to adapt the subdivisions to the regularized city, including the implementation of essential infrastructure. On the environmental side, the focus is on settlements without licensing and in violation of regulations. Social measures seek to provide quality of life, especially for low-income families.

Reurb emerges as a fundamental instrument for integrating informal urban centers into territorial planning, guaranteeing rights and promoting sustainable urban development. And IEME Brasil works towards this.