The trajectory of COHAB-Bauru: housing policy and production of urban space

• Grant number: 21/09243-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Urban and Regional Planning - Fundamentals of Urban and Regional Planning
• Principal Investigator: Jefferson Oliveira Goulart
• Grantee: Jennifer Souza Santos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes e Comunicação (FAAC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The object of this research project is to study the activities of the Companhia de Habitação Popular de Bauru (SP) and analyze its trajectory, from its foundation in 1966 to the present day. The investigation comprises a quantitative cataloging and qualitative analysis of the housing production of Cohab-Bauru in different periods and through different institutional models, taking as its analytical hypothesis that housing provision also implies the production of urban space. Even if housing policies are guided by the confrontation of the housing deficit, they also contribute to the discontinuous expansion of the urban network and result in spatially and socially fragmented cities. These aspects refer to urban dynamics that, besides public policies, include the actions of the real estate market, whose conjunction produces results such as socio-spatial segregation of low-income social strata, deprived of the right to the city. The study reconstitutes the trajectory of Cohab-Bauru and its historical development as a result of the housing policy implemented from the authoritarian regime installed in 1964, whose origin is associated with the institutional modeling of the Housing Finance System (SFH), the Banco Nacional de Habitação (BNH) and the Companhias Habitacionais (COHABs). The breadth of the chronological scope also allows the analysis of the impacts of subsequent institutional changes, especially after the extinction of the BNH in 1986, in order to understand its effects on public policies for social housing and to what extent these impacted the urban development of Bauru. (AU)