In downtown São Paulo, thousands of buildings sit empty while thousands of families go without a stable place to live. Some of those families pay rents they can barely afford. Others sleep under viaducts a few blocks from the vacant properties.

FICA has spent the past decade closing that gap. Founded in 2015 and run by the Associação Pela Propriedade Comunitária, a group of architects, lawyers, and other professionals working toward a more equitable city, FICA buys properties across São Paulo and rents them to low-income families at social rates. Residents also get support connecting to healthcare, jobs, and education, and FICA lobbies for housing policy that makes this kind of work possible at a larger scale.

FICA calls itself a collectively owned real estate fund. Every property it buys is pulled permanently out of the speculative market and put toward one purpose: housing people who need it.

The numbers are modest by design. FICA currently manages 12 properties and 53 housing units, sheltering around 90 people. That adds up to roughly 1,340 square meters of São Paulo real estate taken out of speculation for good. Rents in FICA’s buildings run between R$310 and R$380 a month, a fraction of market rate in a city where housing costs have pushed lower-income families further from the center.

Morar Primeiro: Housing First For People Living On The Street

FICA’s best known program, Morar Primeiro, was developed with Padre Julio Lancellotti, a São Paulo priest known for his work with people experiencing homelessness. The idea behind it is simple: give someone a home first, and let everything else, from a job to a doctor’s appointment, follow from there.

Families and individuals in the program move directly from the street into an apartment. In its first phase, Morar Primeiro placed 60 adults into housing. A month later, 12 of them had put together a resume and seven had found work. A later phase used three FICA properties to house 15 families who had been living under viaducts in the city’s East Zone. Residents start by covering only their water and electricity bills, and take on rent and condominium fees gradually as their income allows.

FICA runs several programs alongside Morar Primeiro, each aimed at a different piece of São Paulo’s housing shortage:

• FICA Apartamentos: rents units in FICA-owned buildings to low-income families at social rates, currently R$310 to R$380 a month.
• Morar Primeiro: places people experiencing homelessness directly into housing, developed with Padre Julio Lancellotti.
• Moradia Estudantil: affordable student housing, including the Caburé building in central São Paulo.
• Compartilha: shared housing and community-building among FICA residents.
• FICALab: an in-house lab that researches new models for urban property and land use.

Moradia Estudantil: Housing For Students In The Heart Of The City

Students in São Paulo face the same speculative housing market as everyone else, often on much smaller budgets. FICA’s Moradia Estudantil program rents units in buildings like Caburé to students at social rates, so a place to live doesn’t compete with tuition and books.

The building operates on the same principle as FICA’s other properties: it stays in community hands permanently, rather than reverting to the speculative market once a resident moves on.

FICA Apartamentos: Turning Vacant Buildings Into Long-Term Homes

Before Morar Primeiro or Moradia Estudantil existed, FICA Apartamentos was the model that started it all: buy a building, fix it up, and rent it permanently to families who would otherwise be priced out of central São Paulo. The Bom Jesus building, pictured above, is one of the properties that anchored FICA’s early work.

FICA has since expanded beyond São Paulo. In partnership with Habitat for Humanity Brazil, it opened FICA Recife in 2025, including the Casa da Concórdia project, which is converting a donated property into six apartments for around 30 immigrants in vulnerable situations. In 2023, the United Nations recognized FICA’s model with a UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour.

A Home Is Where Everything Else Begins

Every FICA property represents a building that speculation didn’t win and a family that didn’t have to choose between rent and everything else. Ten years in, FICA has kept 53 units and 1,340 square meters of São Paulo permanently out of the market that pushed those families out in the first place.

Donations from the public are a core part of how FICA sustains this work, since the organization doesn’t currently rely on public funding.

Explore more about their mission and how you can support them here: FICA

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