Social Impact on Housing - FICA and the workshop Designing in Small Businesses
I am an architecture and urban planning student at USP and I joined Citas at the end of 2021. I decided to share with you a little of what I learned, because I believe that architecture, being economically viable and inclusive, can be an important tool for achieving Social Impact in housing.
FICA is a fund that raises resources through donations, purchases properties in central regions with infrastructure, and rents them to families with an income of 2 to 3 minimum wages. My first contact with the fund was in 2021, when I learned that they were promoting a workshop focused on social impact housing.
The workshop was called Designing in Small and aimed to invite undergraduate students to prepare proposals for occupation and furniture for one of the properties acquired by FICA.
The opportunities and gaps filled by FICA
The chosen property is located in the Bom Retiro neighborhood, central region of the capital of São Paulo and traditionally a region occupied by immigrants with a large number of sewing services, sale of clothes, textile products and sewing machines.
The family that received the property is of Bolivian origin and, like many foreigners, they faced difficulties in renting a property. These difficulties occur due to the low trust that tenants have in foreigners when it comes to paying rent, so immigrants are often required to provide a series of documents and pay additional amounts in order to rent a property.
A little about my international experience
What attracted me most to this workshop was precisely the fact that it included foreign people, as I had tried to live an experience abroad several times, and because of this I understood the various obstacles that an immigrant faces in a foreign country.
In 2020, I was in the process of doing an exchange program in England, but due to the pandemic, I was unable to make the trip. Despite this, even within Brazil, I try to live the experience of an exchange program. So, through an Architecture group on Facebook, I met a Nigerian architect who, like me, was preparing to do an exchange program, but to Brazil. I confess that all the interest and effort he was putting into coming to Brazil touched me deeply, because I was focusing all my interest and effort on leaving him.
I believe that one way to better understand different architectural proposals is to know other productions already carried out.
The Tiny House Workshop
From this experience, I saw how much a country like Brazil represents hope for a better life for many people from other countries, and this was the search that the Bolivian family had when staying in São Paulo, and all this insight was what made me hold the workshop.
And, to carry it out, we had the incredible collaboration of the German architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel who, through the Tiny Houses style, was able to bring a great repertoire of occupation to small residential spaces.
By the way, this video of his about tiny houses is fantastic! It's worth stopping for 15 minutes to watch!
A notable contribution during the workshop was the suggestions he made for how to use the hallway in the house. This hallway took up a significant portion of the property's area, so he suggested that this hallway be diluted with furniture and other forms of use.
The sketches of the work were made within the Miro platform, below is a print of the region of the house where, based on the architect's guidance, the presence of the corridor was stronger and the second version in which the table contributes to better use of the space.
The first meeting of the workshop took place at Casa do Povo , a venue where several social and cooperative activities take place.
The profile of people benefiting from FICA
Afterwards, we visited the workspace of the members of the immigrant group. We talked to them about the process that led them to immigrate from Bolivia to Brazil, their arrival in the Bom Retiro neighborhood, their work as a seamstress, their family life, their desire to have a home, and their experience with FICA.
They were of Bolivian origin and did not want to give many details about their place of origin, as they said they had suffered a lot there. Brazil became an opportunity for a better life for them, and so the Bom Retiro neighborhood was a very strong place for their emotional memories.
On the other hand, immigrants face a series of difficulties in renting properties and the fact that they work from home sewing makes the process even more difficult, with the possible sounds of machines and people working being the reasons for the refusal.
Needs and products generated in the workshop
We went to visit the property purchased by Fundo Fica. When we arrived at the location, we saw that the property was on the upper floor of a two-story house, with five rooms, a main hallway and two bathrooms, totaling 83m² of space. The house would be occupied by a family of seven people: an adult couple with two children, an elderly couple and a single man, with 11.8m² per person.
It was at this workshop that I learned about Citas. The presentation given by the company showed me that a privately held company can indeed have activities that generate social impact as a result of its work and still generate profit. This made me believe again in my pursuits of entrepreneurship and the social impact that can be generated from it.
Below are the results obtained during the workshop: the project created by me and my partner, Pedro Lins, and the illustrations also made by him.
Social Impact Developments in Housing
Despite the good ideas raised, unfortunately few of them could actually be implemented. The family needed to move to the location as soon as possible; and both FICA and the family had limited resources to adapt the property, making it impossible to carry out any more structural renovations to occupy the areas at that time.
I believe that contact with socially impactful housing production by different types of organizations was what impacted me the most. I understood that, based on a common goal of offering more quality housing, it is possible to act in countless ways.