By Camila Jordan, Director of Institutional Relations and Advocacy at TETO Brasil
The housing emergency is a concrete reality for millions of families in Brazil. It comes down to homes that fail to fulfill their most basic function: to protect, to provide dignity, and to allow people to live in safety.
At TETO, we define the housing emergency based on the objective conditions we’ve observed in the territories we’ve worked in since 2006. Shacks built from reused materials and unstable structures, with no real insulation against extreme heat, cold, or strong winds. Makeshift structures that are highly vulnerable to flooding and are often located in risk-prone areas. Families living in overcrowded conditions, with more than one household crammed under the same roof. No bathroom, or access only to extremely precarious facilities. Insecure land tenure and irregular access to essential services like water, electricity, and sanitation.
This definition is not (yet) theoretical. It comes from listening to and living alongside favelas and communities that have been historically rendered invisible. It’s from that reality that we understand the housing emergency to also be an emergency of rights.
Why does this matter? Because housing is the foundation on which every other dimension of life is built. Without an adequate home, health deteriorates, access to education suffers, income is affected, and exposure to risk, including climate risk, rises sharply. Confronting the housing emergency means confronting one of the country’s biggest drivers of inequality.
By naming this reality an emergency, TETO aims to give visibility and urgency to a problem still too often ignored. It must not be. This is a structural crisis that demands immediate action, cross-sector coordination, and sustained investment.
For us, every inadequate home represents a violation, an emergency that cannot wait. And it’s from that understanding that we mobilize volunteers, communities, and partners to build real solutions and push for the structural changes our society needs.
Help chance reality
The housing emergency cannot wait. And neither do you have to. At TETO, volunteers build homes and transform realities alongside communities. Be part of it — become a TETO volunteer.
