Now Taking World Cup Bookings, Rio's Slums By Nadia Sussman Rio Rents Reach New Heights: As Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup, residents of Rio's favelas are turning once dilapidated and dangerous hillside dwellings into valuable hotel rooms. RIO DE JANEIRO - Gun battles still boom through the streets. Drug dealers still ply their trade in the labyrinth of alleyways. Residents of the Rocinha neighborhood still fume over the brutal tactics of the police, who were recently charged with torturing and killing an impoverished bricklayer. Isom Hightower from San Francisco, in the bottom bunk bed, pays around $11 a night in Rocinha. But with hotel rooms in perilously short supply and even modest hostels in Rio de Janeiro charging as much as $450 for a bed during the World Cup in Brazil next year, the residents of Rocinha and other favelas, or slums, are making the most of the city's acute shortage of lodging for the event: they are renting out their homes to fans from around the globe. Maria Clara dos Santos, 49, is preparing to take as many as 10 World Cup visitors into her three-bedroom home in Rocinha (pronounced ho-SEEN-ya), which commands a stunning view of Ipanema's sun-kissed beaches in the distance. True, Ms. dos Santos notes, untreated sewage reeks on her street and steel bars on her windows are needed to deter break-ins, so she is offering guests a comparative bargain - about $50 a night to stay with her during the tournament. "We can provide a level of human warmth and authenticity that places down below cannot," she said, reflecting the growing popularity of favelas for their vibrant musical scenes, cheaper prices and absence of pretension compared with ritzier parts of town. Housing tourists in Rio's slums might well turn out to be one of the smoother aspects of preparing for the World Cup, an event that has been more a source of contention for Brazil than a crowning achievement in its push for global acclaim. Huge cost overruns and chronic delays are bedeviling the lavish stadiums under construction, including accidents involving workers falling to their deaths or being crushed by towering cranes. The Brazilian football confederation remains tarnished by bribery scandals at its highest levels. And if the enormous street protests this year against government spending for the World Cup were not enough, anger is now building over the costly transportation projects intended to get soccer fans to the matches. Some will not even be completed before the last goal in the tournament is scored. "There's a real lack of robust governance structures here to deal with an event this size, so things start breaking and people start dying," said Christopher Gaffney, a scholar at Brazil's Federal Fluminense University who studies large sporting projects. The absurd prices ahead of the World Cup are part of this phenomenon. People perceive the event as bringing only short-term benefits, so they're seizing on the immediate opportunities around the event. Brazilian authorities expect the nation to receive as many as 600,000 foreign tourists around the month of the World Cup, which starts in June and will be held in 12 cities. Here in Rio, which will host the tournament's final game, hotel operators are clearly salivating at the coming influx. One reason: the city has only about 55,400 hotel beds for as many as 300,000 expected visitors, leading rates to surge to an average of about $460 a night, roughly double what they regularly cost, according to a report by Brazil's state tourism agency. Alfredo Lopes, the president of the Brazil Hotel Industry Association's Rio chapter, said the price increases should be expected. "Rio's image is being exalted around the world at this time," he said. It would be absurd to try to regulate hotel prices when there are people prepared to pay what the market determines is the correct price. Going further, Mr. Lopes compared Rio with certain coveted luxury brands. "Some people are prepared to pay triple the money for a Harley-Davidson than for another motorcycle, and there's a reason for that," he said. "The same goes for Rio," he added. Never mind that the state of Rio de Janeiro is grappling with a new crime wave, illustrated by a surge in homicides around the city, the shooting of a 25-year-old German tourist in Rocinha and a string of muggings on beaches frequented by foreign tourists. For those who cannot afford to stay in Rio's more glamorous districts, or who are simply turned off by the city's already high hotel rates, favela lodgings are emerging as an alluring option. "I wanted to learn more about the heart of Brazil, rather than the facade," said Isom Hightower, 30, an aviation consultant from San Francisco now paying around $11 a night for a bunk bed in a Rocinha guesthouse.