The voices of the tenement operators

Abstract

Tenements have been a housing option for the poor in downtown São Paulo since the 1870s. Studies on tenements in São Paulo have been conducted for more than a century, although the major subject missing from the literature has been the tenement intermediaries or operators, the articulating agent of the entire scheme. The text is based on six interviews conducted with tenement landlords and intermediaries in the central region of São Paulo. Through discourse analysis 6 analytical categories have been listed: 1. The beginning of the activity: in which the insertion of the operator into the ecosystem of the tenements is narrated, and sometimes the transformation of properties into tenements; 2. Selection and contracts: how residents move in and the rental documents and agreements; 3. Caretaking: the maintenance of each tenement, habitability; 4. Coexistence: the daily relationship between tenants and landlords and intermediaries; 5. Rates and earnings: costs and income obtained; 6. Future and life projects: how the operators visualize their future in relation to the tenement(s), expansion, sale and even leaving the business. Rather than the tenement operator being described generically, with negative attributes, common figures emerge, who are mostly poorly capitalized and who strive to obtain a slight social upward mobility or to interrupt processes of deterioration.