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FICA
Offering philanthropists an impact investment platform which buys and repurposes extortive housing into affordable real estate under social landownership.
-23.682818703499, -46.5952992
OUTPUT
With the funds from social investors, FICA has purchased and renovated four properties in São Paulo, Brazil, transforming them into safe apartment buildings for vulnerable tenants.
OUTCOME
12 low-income families have become formalised rights-holding tenants of attractive, non-speculative homes close to the work opportunities and services of downtown São Paulo.
HIGHLIGHT
FICA has created an impact investment model – including bylaws, financial modelling, contracts and design – that can be scaled up and inspire better public policies in support of fairer housing in Brazil.
To us it’s apparent: social housing is key to alleviate wealth inequality.
Our Commitment
The Julius Baer Foundation and FICA are developing a new model for sustainable funding of low-income rental housing. The joint action focuses on:
- designing and implementing a new financial, social and legal arrangement for the purchase, refurbishment and management of cortiços in São Paolo.
- creating a model of an Impact Investment Mechanism (IMM) to allow the acquisition of cortiços through crowdfunding and their non-speculative management.
- promoting impact investments as an alternative investment model in the real estate market.
- piloting the project in São Paolo.
- monitoring the first impacts on the residents' quality of living.
- launching actions to influence public policies, including a white paper and proposals to expand the model in other cities in Brazil.
FICA (Fundo Imobiliario Comunitario para Aluguel) is a real estate fund that addresses the staggering housing inequality in the urban areas of Brazil. By promoting impact investments in real estate, FICA aims to turn run-down, extortive accommodations into sustainable and affordable housing.
Property and land are scarce resources concentrated in the hands of a few. When driven by market and private interests, the allocation of real estate becomes increasingly unequal, even more in prime locations.
In the city centre of São Paulo, the speculative real estate market has led to extortive informal housing situations. In derelict buildings – so-called cortiços – multiple families are crowded together, paying more rent per square meter than people in affluent areas.
FICA believes in alternatives to the speculative housing market, and it is taking concrete steps to provide low-income people with affordable and safe housing.
The Julius Baer Foundation supports FICA in the development and promotion of an impact investment real estate model, which allows individuals or entities to invest into real estate with maximized social impact at a capped financial return.
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The concept of 'adequate' housing is not restricted to the right to a house. It is not a matter of having a place with a roof and four walls, but a stake in the territory which can serve as a base for accessing other rights: the right to education, the right to health, the right to protection, the right to freedom of expression, the right to non-discrimination
From powerless dwellers…
Cortiços often look like single-family homes from the outside, but inside are subdivided apartments with tenants living in crowded, unhealthy conditions under exploitative contract terms.
... to empowered tenants of fairer housing.
The renovated homes created by the Compartilha project give their low-income residents access to the protections and services of an official contract and address. Children benefit greatly, typically displaying improved learning and achievement.
Become a Changemaker
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Are you an investor, real estate developer or a researcher in Brazil and want to support FICA in the development of the project?
