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When the government announced on national TV that the World Cup and Olympics would be here,

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everyone thought it would bring progress, that was everyone's first reaction - rich or poor.

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Then, the manner in which things started being done is what turned out to be wrong.

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8,000 people have already lost their homes in Rio de Janeiro since preparations began for the

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2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.

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This is one of their stories.

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I've lived in Pavãozinho since I was 7 or 8 years old.

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It's peaceful and calm here, as you can see.

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The people are nice, everyone is friendly.

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I like it here very much, I wish my mom could get the house so I could live with her.

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I love my community, and I want to stay here.

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No one will take me away from here.

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Everything started here in the community in January of 2011.

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I wasn't even home at the time, only my daughter and niece.

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They asked for the owner of the house, and I told them my mother wasn't home.

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And then they said they were going to tear the house down, right then and there.

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So I said: 'No, you can't, my mom isn't even home'

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(And they said): 'so you have to call her, because it has to happen now'.

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And then I called my mom and she came up right away, running.

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When I got here, the house was already flooded, they had removed the water pipes.

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There were several men from the city government, with sledgehammers.

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So I tried to negotiate a deadline to leave,

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so that I could find another place for us to stay, we had no other place to go.

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Where were we supposed to stay, in the middle of the street?

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So he told my daughter: 'Talk to your mother, she's being too stubborn, tell her to leave,

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or else she's going to end up getting hurt.

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And at that moment I was very scared,

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because a bunch of police officers, city guards,

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all of them pressuring me, saying that if I didn't leave on good terms I would leave on bad terms,

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so I realized what was happening was dishonest, something outside of the law.

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And my daughter was asking me to go, so I did.

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I don't like to remember that.

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After Elisângela lost her house, her daughter had to go live with her grandmother,

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and ended up missing six months of school.

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Over a year later, the family still hasn't been compensated or ressettled by the government.

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Mother and daughter are still living separately.

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And then they promised to give me another house.

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After two months of me going (to City Hall) every day, they offered a house in Campo Grande.

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So we got the address and went to visit the condo where they had built these houses.

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We got to Campo Grande after two and a half hours.

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And then to get to the house we had to take another bus,

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because there's only one line that goes all the way there. (60km from downtown Rio)

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There's not a single shop on the street, there isn't a school,

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so we had to consider all of this,

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and I decided not to accept the house.

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Every day I would go to City Hall, sometimes they wouldn't meet with me,

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or they would say no one was there, tell me to come back.

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So I stood in the hallway to wait for (Housing Secretary) Jorge Bittar to go to lunch.

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When he goes to lunch, I'll stop him.

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And that's what happened!

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When he was going to lunch, I grabbed his arm and said:

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'I live in Pavão-Pavãozinho, SEOP (government agency) went to my house and demolished it,

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without giving me any prior notice, without any compensation or resettlement,

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they gave me this piece of paper saying I would get another home in three months at most,

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and up to now nothing has happened.

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So he took down my contacts and said one of his secretaries would get back to me.

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That secretary never answered my calls.

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It's been more than a year now since they promised the resettlement, and still nothing.

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Despite stories like Elisângela's, Rio's municipal government continues to say that all expropriations

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are being done according to the law and in respect of human rights.

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(Jorge Bittar, Municipal Housing Secretary - Nov/11)

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"Nothing will be defined without dialogue with the (affected) residents."

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"Nothing. There will not be any impositions."

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(Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes - March/11)

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"We've already done more than 3,000 expropriations of houses, buildings, shops."

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"The expert makes an assessment and the government pays an adequate and fair amount."

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"In fact we've paid very adequate amounts."

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How do you respond to someone who reads the paper or watches TV and believes

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the assertions being made by Mayor Paes and Secretary Bittar?

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Even I believed that before it happened to me and my neighbors!

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We believed it, because we see all the commercials...

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We don't know if it's true or not, but the way they present it makes it seem real.

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My feelings after all that happened, one year after my house was demolished,

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are of indignation.

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I get angry because, as you see, I have all the documentation, all the receipts

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that prove how much I spent and invested in my home.

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Nothing was given to me for free.

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Everything was bought with lots of sweat and years of work.

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If I walked into an elevator and ran into Mayor Paes, I'd have a lot to say to him.

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I'd tell him my story, and say that it's similar to millions of other families in Rio.

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I'd also say that he won my vote (last time). I campaigned for him, I believed him,

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and next time that's definitely not going to happen again.

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I won't vote for him or whoever he's supporting, and I'll campaign against him, for sure.

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Everyone from the communities will do the same, because no one is stupid.

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Still living away from each other more than a year later, mother and daughter see each other on weekends.

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My dream for my daughter is something she's already told me she wants.

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When she finishes high school, she wants to study French or Italian culinary.

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She's the one who wants that.

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She's seen me cook since she was 7, and today she cooks very well too.

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I miss my mom sometimes, of course, I had always been raised by her and close to family.

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But I hope to live with my mom again.

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I'm going to keep fighting until the end.

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Until the courts say I win or lose, it doesn't matter, I'm going to keep fighting.

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I handed it over to justice, and I'm confident I will win.

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More than 20,000 people are still at risk of losing their homes in Rio.

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We demand an end to forced evictions, respect for our laws, and the guarantee of the right to housing in our city.

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Share this video and join the fight for a #RioWithoutEvictions

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http://rio.portalpopulardacopa.org.br

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A special thanks to Elisângela and Angel for sharing their story and for the courage to keep fighting.

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