FICA and the Right to Stay in São Paulo

Memory, repair, and collective ownership

This photo essay is part of Building Dignified Worlds: Narratives of Diversity in Housing and Property Ownership in Latin America, a collaboration between FICA, the Magnum Foundation, and the Parsons DESIS Lab at The New School, supported by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

FICA team working to expand access to dignified housing in São Paulo — *From their office in downtown São Paulo, the FICA team adds its voice to a growing movement reimagining housing, land, and who gets to belong in the city. Photo © Renan Teles*

The word FICA means “to stay” in Portuguese. It’s also an acronym for Fundo Imobiliário Comunitário para Aluguel, which translates to Community Real Estate Fund. Founded in 2015 by a group of middle-class professionals in São Paulo, and managed by a nonprofit, the fund has steadily grown. Nearly a decade after its creation, FICA owns fifty housing units and provides safe, affordable homes for ninety people.

Resident on balcony of a dignified housing unit surrounded by greenery — *From her balcony at Caburé, FICA’s student housing, Laura enjoys a cup of tea while taking in the trees that line the neighboring University of São Paulo campus. Photo © Renan Teles*

FICA doesn’t build new housing. Instead, it reclaims existing properties, either by purchasing homes and apartments or negotiating concessions with landlords. These units are then rented at non-speculative rates, ranging from free to 40% of market value. In doing so, FICA transforms properties marked by histories of speculation and exclusion. You could say it changes the DNA of real estate itself.

The series of photographs presented here, created by Renan Teles in collaboration with FICA, is one of five site-specific collaborations unfolding across Latin America. Each brings together local photographers and grassroots organizations to document alternative approaches to housing and property. Through visual narratives grounded in the lived experience of residents, the project challenges dominant paradigms of private ownership and speculative development, opening space for more inclusive, situated, and imaginative urban futures.

What follows are fragments of one such story, and the layered histories, people, and politics behind one of the homes now held in FICA’s care.

A Story of One Home

Exterior of a restored building offering dignified housing in Bom Retiro — *This building in Bom Retiro, now home to Casa Anhaia, carries nearly a century of layered histories, from migration and labor to inheritance and collective reinvention. Photo © Renan Teles*

This home sits on land that once belonged to São Paulo’s largest brickworks in the nineteenth century. The clay pits worsened flooding in the area, and by the end of the century, brickmaking was banned. The land was sold to an Italian family who built single-story rental homes. In 1938, a Polish-Jewish fur merchant bought the row houses as a retirement investment. Construction was completed in 1947.

This was Bom Retiro, then the center of Jewish life in São Paulo. The basement apartment, with its two green windows and matching door, was rented by another Jewish family. The family moved in with Noêmia, their live-in maid, a Black woman. In the 1960s, they bought the flat from the landlord. Over time, the children left, the mother passed away in 1988, and Noêmia remained until her death in 2008. She had lived there for sixty years. Afterward, the family rented out the apartment. In 2022, FICA contacted the descendants, by then, fourteen owners, mostly third-generation cousins, and offered to buy the property.

Honoring the Construction Workers

Workers renovating a home to provide dignified housing for the community — *Wando and José work on the renovation of Casa Anhaia in Bom Retiro. Photo © Renan Teles*

Do you know the names of the people who built or renovated your home? FICA does. When a unit is acquired, renovation begins through informal networks of trusted workers, often referred by word of mouth. FICA prioritizes relationships built on care and mutual respect rather than outsourcing to anonymous contractors.

Local workers helping transform the space into dignified housing — *At Casa Anhaia, brothers Lucas and Luan replace the floor tiles, adding their labor and care to the collective reimagining of the home. Photo © Renan Teles*

At Casa Anhaia, Severino led the renovation. Lucas laid the tiles. Wando handled the electrical work. Others contributed with plumbing, masonry, and finishes. These are not just service providers—they are cocreators of a home. Their names and contributions are remembered because FICA believes that dignified housing must also recognize the dignity of labor.

In a city that often erases the hands that build it, FICA insists on visibility. To build a more just urban future, it starts with honoring those who make it possible.

A New Chapter for Bom Retiro

São Paulo is a regional magnet, and Bom Retiro has long been one of its entry points. The same hopes that brought past generations of immigrants from Italy, Central Europe, and Greece also brought Zulema from Bolivia. Like many of her fellow Bolivians, she worked long hours in the garment district. Those long days helped her raise five children, but most of her earnings went to landlords, paying for low-quality housing.

Family on the day they received keys to their new dignified housing — *Zulema, Cris, and Lis sit together on the day they received the keys to their new home at Casa Anhaia. Photo © Renan Teles*

That changed in 2024, when Zulema was selected to live in the green-doored flat. Today, she pays less than half the rent she used to, and her home is twice the size.

Real estate doesn’t have to be tied to exploitation, accumulation, or injustice. FICA is showing another way.

Main image: Through FICA, Juan and Bruna had access to housing just across from the University of São Paulo campus, a place where Black graduate students are often priced out. Photo © Renan Teles