The new "Minha Casa, Minha Vida" program protects Brazilians from swindlers and middlemen like Deltan Dallagnol.

In the provisional measure that created the new Minha Casa, Minha Vida program, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva limited the sale of new homes to families with a maximum gross monthly income of 8 reais.

With this limitation, the government shields low-income and middle-income Brazilians from speculators like Deltan Dallagnol, who, between 2013 and 2014, bought two apartments in Ponta Grossa, Paraná.

He paid R$76 for one of the properties and R$80 for the other. The apartments, located near a public university campus, remained unoccupied for years until he sold one for double the price. The other was still vacant when I was there in 2021.

Dallagnol paid cash for the properties, which had received federal subsidies for their construction. And there was no legal rule prohibiting it. At the time, only social housing, corresponding to about 20% of the constructions, had any type of restriction on sale.

At the time, I interviewed one of the people responsible for creating the first Minha Casa, Minha Vida program, the sociologist Inês Magalhães, who was also Minister of Cities.

"The property that is financed once receives the subsidy, but if the property is sold, the second buyer will not be able to obtain financing with a subsidized rate. We avoided this, but we could not prevent those who have money from buying without financing and profiting from real estate speculation," said Inês Magalhães at the time.

When she gave me the interview in 2015, Inês had already left the National Housing Secretariat and explained why she couldn't prevent people like Deltan Dallagnol from getting in the way of those to whom the government wanted the properties to be handed over.

“Preventing those with money from buying is interfering with market rules. But this is a discussion we need to have: can those with money buy property intended for the Minha Casa Minha Vida program?” he said.

It was the height of Lava Jato when Inês made the statement, and I asked her how she viewed Deltan Dallagnol's acquisition of the apartments, given that, in addition to his salary as a prosecutor, he received a housing allowance of R$ 3,7 per month, even though he owned a residence in Curitiba, the city where he worked as a federal prosecutor.

“Today, we are being subjected to moral judgments in a campaign led by some prosecutors. I don't feel comfortable doing the same. But we have to discuss this issue of real estate speculation in light of the country's housing policy, that's for sure.”

Inês was part of Lula's government transition team and, judging by the provisional measure signed this Tuesday, this discussion took place. The Brazilian people won, speculators like Dallagnol lost.