Housing and public policy: what has been researched about it?

Abstract Objective with this article to review scientific literature on the Brazilian housing policy, from 1964 to 2014 in order to understand how this issue has been studied by management and other areas of Applied Social Sciences. Therefore, we performed a meta-study that was systematized in three stages: (i) selection of literature to be analyzed; (ii) collecting the information and (iii) the analysis, interpretation and presentation of results. The content analysis technique, subdivide the steps of pre-analysis, material exploration and treatment of results supported the construction of the proposal. Some interesting results: predominance of the gauchos and São Paulo researchers, belonging mainly to the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo University; and the use of evaluative nature of research involving housing programs nationwide, as the Minha Casa, Minha Vida and the Residential Leasing Program implemented at local level. On the other hand, certain shortcomings were identified: the direction of studies on housing provision, that is, building houses with little production involving other perspectives of housing policy, as the reform and regularization of slums; and the predominance of research in urban context indicating the lack of research focusing on rural housing.