On Wednesday morning (30), around 300 people from the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST, in Portuguese), the largest of its kind in Brazil, occupied a Vitacon 42 Desenvolvimentos Imobiliários building in Vila Olímpia neighborhood, in the south zone of São Paulo. The company is one of those listed in an investigation into the scheme to defraud social housing in the city. According to the movement, the action was quick and peaceful.
“We won’t accept construction companies that are already absurdly rich taking advantage of a law aimed at providing well-located social housing for the people, to get even richer, without building the projects for those who are entitled to them,” explains Ana Paula Perles, MTST coordinator.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP), responsible for the investigation, construction companies have benefited from the tax exemption granted by São Paulo City Hall to companies that build housing units for the low-income population. However, these companies allegedly sold units to people who did not fall into the category of Social Interest Housing (HIS, in Portuguese) or Popular Market Housing (HMP, in Portuguese).
The Public Prosecutor’s Office mentions “omission” on the part of the municipal administration “in its duty to supervise its own policy, which grants public incentives to companies that intend to build housing”. The municipality “encouraged countless frauds by selling and renting out these housing units to people who did not fit into the respective income brackets, to the detriment of the target public.”
Between December 2024 and January 2025, the Public Prosecutor’s Office received more than 560 notifications from São Paulo’s real estate registry offices about possible fraudulent sales of HIS and HMP units. The City Council went so far as to change the legislation so that property registration would only be done by registry offices when the buyer’s income was proven. However, the law was overturned in the courts, following a request from the construction companies themselves.
As for Vitacon, the São Paulo Municipal Housing Secretariat published a notice on April 22nd asking the company for information on the allocation of HIS and HMP units to the target income bracket. The information must be provided within 15 calendar days of receiving the notice. In total, the development has 221 units, of which 165 have been approved as HIS, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
In the document, São Paulo City Hall asks for the following documents:
- – Registration documents of all the properties in the development;
- – Contracts for the purchase and sale and/or commitment to purchase and sell the HIS and/or HMP units;
- – Documents proving that the acquiring families fall within the target income bracket for all the units licensed as HIS and/or HMP;
- – Other documents demonstrating the correct destination of the HIS and HMP units, under the terms of the municipal legislation on the subject.
BdF contacted Vitacon, but received no response so far.
