ABSTRACT
During the past half-century, housing provision policies went through significant changes in Brazil. Within the urban outskirts of Brazil's larger cities, the favelas, corticos and areas where squatters live in empty buildings, self-built houses typify the type of dwellings found. In fact, self-built homes have been one of the few available housing alternatives for the low-income population. During the military dictatorship, especially in the first half of the 1970s, the government launched a large number of infrastructure and housing projects. The replacement of the National Housing Bank with the Federal Savings Bank in 1986 did not change federal housing policy concepts. In 1984 and based on the initiatives of the professionals who acted in the Sao Paulo and Sao Bernardo do Campo task force building programmes, the First Housing Movements Meeting was held with the theme of 'Mutual and Self-Help Cooperatives'.
