Brazil to continue Rousseff's flagship housing program

The Brazilian government announced Thursday that it would restart the construction of over 10,000 houses as part of the "Mi Casa, Mi Vida (My House, My Life) " program destined for poorer families.

This program was a flagship policy for the Workers' Party governments of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, but it was thought likely that interim President Michel Temer would suspend it to cut government spending.

At a press conference, Cities Minister Bruno Araujo announced that more housing would be built for category 1.5 of beneficiaries, or families with net monthly income of up to 2,350 reais (750 U.S. dollars). The government will allocate another 3.8 billion reais (1.2 billion U.S. dollars) to build another 40,000 homes for this category.

Araujo said a total of 600,000 new homes would be built in 2017.

After Temer took over in office after the suspension of Rousseff, "Mi Casa, Mi Vida" had been temporarily suspended and the construction of thousands of homes had been paralyzed.

Since 2009, the federal government has invested 309 billion reais (98.1 billion U.S. dollars) to build over 4.3 million homes as part of this program.

(APD)