For the first time, police units will be deployed to prevent construction of new housing in the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, known as favelas.
Officials cynically claim to be concerned about favelas hurting the wild vegetation on the hillsides. In reality, a growing movement of middle- and upper-class homeowners, worried about the value of their property, wants the government to do away with the poor living nearby.
Homeowners in the well-to-do Fonte da Saudade neighborhood are threatening to withhold their property taxes and take legal action against the government for failing to stop the growth of a nearby favela.
The question of decent, low-income housing is a non-issue to this reactionary movement. Brazilian inequality rates already rank amongst the highest in the world, and the new police deployment amounts to a further criminalization of poverty.
