Social housing in Portugal and in the Municipality of São Paulo: Comparison of space standards.

Abstract

This paper compares the space standards for social housing in Portugal and in São Paulo, and seeks explanations for differences in the socio-economic context of both territories. The Controlled Cost Housing (CCH) in Portugal and the housing built within the program My Home My Life (MHML) in São Paulo Municipality are studied. The number and type of rooms, the internal floor area of dwellings, the size of rooms, and the list and size of furniture and equipment are compared. Three research questions are addressed: Which program has more demanding space standards? Which social-economic conditions explain the differences in space standards? How different space standards influence the users' satisfaction? To answer these questions, the study compares socio-economic indicators, space standards and users' satisfaction of both territories. The study has shown that space standards set for the construction of social housing in CCH are more demanding than in MHML program. For instance, a CCH dwelling has almost two times the gross area of a MHML dwelling with the same number of rooms. The differences in space standards contribute to make the price of housing affordable to low income households in São Paulo Municipality. Although social houses are substantially smaller in São Paulo Municipality than in Portugal, the satisfaction level of dwellers with the size of dwellings is higher in São Paulo. We conclude that different political options regarding how to provide housing to low income households directly influence the space standards set for dwellings and therefore their quality.