O conceito de dignidade e o dilema habitacional brasileiro: desigualdades sociais, mercado e inovações legislativas desde a Constituição de 1988

Abstract

The present work starts from the conception of human dignity as the basis to the right to adequate (dignified) housing in Brazil. Since dignity is a guiding principle of the Brazilian legal system, its promotion is sought in constructing and applying the law. However, the real estate market exerts a strong influence on the evolution of housing in Brazil, intensifying the social inequality that exists in the country. Thus, from the notion of the social function of property, an incoherence emerges: the impossibility of usucapting public property and the need of utilizing inutilizable public property to be able to guarantee the effectiveness of a constitutional right. From there, the research is directed towards the intention of broadening the implementation of the right to housing from the Concession of Special Use with the purpose of Housing (CUEM), a new real right, included in the numerus clausus list of the Brazilian Civil Code of 2002 in the year of 2007. The CUEM allows the utilization of public property for housing uses, after one obtains the required administrative and judicial permission. However, there have not been encouraging results in regard to changes in the housing shortage picture since this new right has been promulgated.