Social Housing in São Paulo: Challenges and New Management Tools

The Cities Alliance is pleased to announce the English-language publication of Social Housing in São Paulo: Challenges and New Management Tools.

• The new publication highlights the second phase of the partnership between the Cities Alliance and the São Paulo Municipal Housing Secretariat (SEHAB), which is responsible for housing policy in the city.
• The goal during this phase was to establish a set of management tools that would facilitate strategic, systematic planning for social housing in the municipality of São Paulo.
• One of the most significant results was the creation of HABISP, an innovative information system that has become a valuable tool for urban development in São Paulo.

HABISP is a centralised database with information about the city’s precarious settlements—including favelas, informal land subdivisions and slum tenements—as well as government housing developments.

• Because it is regularly updated by technical staff on the ground, Habisp provides a comprehensive, up-to-date view of the city’s settlements. It also permits monitoring indicators and ranking neighbourhoods based on a set of priority criteria. As a result, the municipality is able to focus its policies and resources on those areas that are most in need, according to different programmatic lines adopted.
• HABISP has generated considerable interest internationally, and plans are currently underway to expand it to other cities in Brazil.