00:00And last September 7th, thousands of members of Brazil's Neighborhood Struggle Movement
00:04exercised their constitutional right to housing by occupying vacant government buildings in 18 states across Brazil.
00:11This month, the Lula administration started granting them deeds to the land.
00:15A correspondent, Brian Mir, with the details.
00:19The 250 families living in the Gregorio Bezerra Free Palestine Squat in Recife
00:25are celebrating after receiving their rights to the land in record time.
00:30We have running water. We have a little stove so we can cook.
00:34We have a refrigerator. We need more stable electricity.
00:38We're only getting 110 volts right now, but it's going to be better.
00:42Article 182 of the Brazilian Constitution stipulates that landless citizens have the right to occupy abandoned buildings
00:48that have been vacant for over five years and holds the government responsible for converting them into social housing.
00:54The Neighborhood Struggle Movement, or MLB, identified a plot of land with three Social Security Administration buildings on it
01:01after learning that it had been vacant for over 20 years.
01:04Last year, they occupied it on the September 7th holiday.
01:11While the military were marching to honor their homeland, this homeland, which they have attacked so many times over the
01:18years,
01:19including during the military dictatorship, we rallied under the cry of,
01:23there is no homeland or sovereignty without housing.
01:27We simultaneously occupied 18 vacant properties across Brazil before dawn on Independence Day.
01:34They are all named after warriors from our history together with the slogan Free Palestine.
01:39Although appropriating vacant property often takes over a decade in Brazil,
01:43the Lula administration streamlined the process for appropriating federal government buildings in 2023.
01:49Six months after founding the Gregorio Bezerra Free Palestine Settlement,
01:53the government signed over the land deed and announced financial support to convert or build housing units for all 250
02:00families.
02:04Now, we are registering the families living here.
02:08There are a lot of single mothers who need this occupation to survive and to be able to afford to
02:14give better food to their children.
02:16We are very happy that we have gotten the land rights.
02:19It is a huge conquest.
02:21And so now, the government agencies are going to help us build our apartments.
02:26As David Harvey once said, the right to the city doesn't just mean the right to live in cities.
02:31It's the right for all city residents, especially the poor, to be able to modify cities any way that suits
02:37their needs.
02:39Brian Meir, Telesur, Recife.
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