Affordable housing, health, and climate resilience: Insights from residents and stakeholders in the Brazil’s Minha Casa, Minha Vida Program

Climate change exacerbates social inequalities in urban areas, disproportionately increasing disadvantaged communities’ exposure to environmental hazards. Housing shapes exposure, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity to climate risks, making it a key determinant of health and climate resilience. In Brazil, Minha Casa, Minha Vida (MCMV) is the largest federal affordable housing program, yet evidence on its health and climate implications remains limited. This study explores how MCMV affects health and climate resilience from the perspectives of residents and institutional stakeholders. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 52 residents (61.5% women; 53.8% self-identified as Brown/Pardo; primarily aged 30–49) and 12 institutional stakeholders (50% working in Curitiba–PR; 66.7% women; 83.3% self-identified as White; ages primarily 30–59) across five Brazilian cities. Guided by the Enhanced Socioecological Model (E-SEM), qualitative content analysis examined barriers and opportunities across individual, social, neighborhood, policy, and planetary levels. Across cities, residents described psychological security and emotional relief associated with stable homeownership (e.g., reduced anxiety and improved sleep), alongside challenges linked to peripheral siting and uneven infrastructure (long commutes, limited services, inadequate sidewalks/drainage, sewage problems, and weak state presence). Residents also reported environmental and infrastructure, worsened by lack of shade and green spaces. Stakeholders emphasized upstream drivers aligning with these experiences, including land-market pressures, zoning and governance constraints, fragmented intersectoral coordination, and limited incorporation/enforcement of climate adaptation. Overall, MCMV improves basic living conditions but often reinforces spatial inequities and climate vulnerability; advancing health and resilience will require improvements in location, intersectoral coordination, climate-responsive design, and community engagement.