Hundreds of families in Rio de Janeiro who say they are being forced from their homes because of construction related to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics have filed lawsuits against the city.
Residents of the neighbourhoods west of the city said municipal officials offered them insufficient money to compensate them for their homes, which are to be razed to make way for the athletic facilities ahead of the Brazil games.
Some inhabitants of several neighbourhoods in the path of the planned construction said they have been offered alternative housing in apartments far smaller and farther from work than their existing homes.
“They are proposing that I give my house to the city for a next to nothing, in exchange for a smaller apartment that’s further away,” said Jose Jorge Santos de Oliveira, 51, who has lived in his current dwelling for 16 years.
“If I don’t take it, they are offering to compensate me some 8,700 reales (£3,370) – not enough money to buy another house,” he said.
He claimed that the market price of his house is about 50,000 reales (£19,350).
Categories: Brazil