Good Luck on Friday 13

The Prestes Maia has been saved? Housing is going to be made available for all its residents? Politics are on the move. This coming Sunday was the deadline for the MSTC to resolve the Prestes Maia pullout or finally be evicted. I never believed they would be put on the street. The city already has a huge homeless population and putting another 500 people on the street overnight is no good for anyone.

On Thursday night City Hall, the Ministry of Habitat along with the CDHU showed up at the Prestes Maia and began conducting a census. From what I was told the basement was absolutely packed. Individual lines of men, women, pregnant women and elders were trying to prove how long they had been living in the building. They were there until 5 am. There was people who had never lived there too. The MSTC must have mobilized everyone they had. THe Prestes Maia has been sold the world over as the largest occupation in Latin America. Housing 468 families. If you do the math in Brazilian family equations, that amounts to 2300 residents. No way! I've been in that building for a year and at most there 600 people. The MSTC uses that number to obtain that amount of housing and solve most of their occupations problems. Last week a series of occupations were done downtown. Many of the residents of the Prestes Maia collaborated.

The officials had come to begin establishing a new housing offer to the residents with three options: 1. Move to the Itaquera housing projects 2. Receive USD$850 to pay for six months rent while the city renovates a series of buildings downtown for them or 3. Obtain a USD$12,000 financing project. The financing project is ridiculous cause no one here in this building can prove their salaries, they all have irregular or freelance jobs.

The following night, Friday the 13th, the mayor Gilberto Kassab (PFL) showed up to give the good news. The mayor in the Prestes Maia on a Friday night? The press had come along to boost the mayor's accomplishment, not the actual housing problem.

The basement was packed. I had been to many assembly meetings but had never seen so many people. On Sunday night the leaders of the MSTC would come back and explain to the residents how the plan was going to work. This time the room would be half full. This confirmed my suspicions the movement had brought people in from other occupations to the official census.

After the many hoorahs and love expressed to the mayor, who last week was being bithced at, members of the Evangelist Igreja Universal took the stage for a prayer. The Evangelists have begun working the building for the last month in an attempt to attract more faithfuls. On Sunday they would bring a bus to take them to church.

I won't believe they've got their believe until I see it myself. The last picture?