Information on Cortiço in Galpão

The cortiço we visited in Liberdade, Rua de Corde São Joaquim 140, is about 6 to 10 years old, or at least that is how long the first person to have squatted it lives there.
The cortiço started out as a parking lot, a galpão to store cars, where one woman decided to settle and build a little house, all in the back of the parking lot. Later she brought her family over to join her.
The occupation of the galpão thereafter did not happen in an organised way or with any hierarchy. At first there was just one community, the family of the first lady, who all lived together using the same kitchen and washing place. But with more people entering and claiming a place, the need to subdivide the galpão grew. This subdivision happened randomly, where everybody claimed a spot of their preference, even taking up the washingroom and bathroom as their piece.
Many of these who enter new, lived in a pensão before, which is alo a kind of cortiço, but a little better equipped.

The municipality prohibits more people to settle in the galpão, but this happens nevertheless. This means that the administration of the municipality, where they numbered all the baraquas to document who lives there, is not up to date. This is a risk for the people who came later, beccause the municipality will give financial aid onlu to those whom are registered, when the inhabitants of the cortiço are to be evicted.
This help of the municipality comes down to the choice between money or a new home. When you choose money, you will get a ‘carte de credito’ for 2400R$, and then you are on your own to organise a dwelling. When you choose for a new house you will have to wait for the municipality to relocate you.
People who are by themselves, and do not form a family, are not offered the choice of money, but an exeption has been made at times for women on their own.

The cortiço is most busy during the day and in the weekend, because most inhabitants have a night job. The equipment in the cortiço does not suffice for all these people. There is onlu one shower, one toilet and one sink that serves for washing dishes as well as laundry, present.
In the morning and evening there is always a long line of people, waiting to make use of the bathroom. The bathroom they are waiting for is in abominal condition, it is said to be a nest of diseases. The mothers will not let the children go there unattended, but will rather have them go on a potty trainer in the unidade, and later dispose of it in the fossa. A fossa is a septic tank, but a rather unprofessional one, which overflows often.
These, plus the lack of privacy, are all reasons why everytime you ask people in the cortiço what they miss, a private bathroom is mentioned.
The equipment which is also in very poor condition, is the electricity network. It is selfmade and improvised, using ducktape and other inappropriate materials.
It happens now and then that the wires catch fire, and the whole cortiço is in danger of burning, but then the inhabitants rip of the wires to stop the fire from spreading.

It only rarely happens that people invest in improving their piece, sometimes they will expand their unidade by building a second floor ontop the first. Sometimes two pieces are combined to make a bigger one, and seldomly the wooden boards functioning as walls, get replaced by bricks. The reason no such investments are made often, is not necessarily the money, but the insecurity of being evicted very soon. The average time of living in one particular cortiço before moving hardly surpasses five years. The inhabitants tell that they rather save up extra moneyto get their own place, instead of investing in an insecure piece in a cortiço.