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From the late nineteenth century to the 1910s, with the rapid growth of the city of São Paulo, housing for workers was the theme of medical discussions and government proposals, as well as a recurring theme in newspapers that, in the name of the workers, denounced the precarious living conditions of many of the city's residents. This article discusses the workers' housing in the capital of São Paulo State in the contexts of the threat of the bubonic plague in 1899, the outbreak of smallpox in 1908 and the Spanish flu epidemic, favoring the considerations of the "independent", anarchistic or libertarian newspapers and, in the case of the flu epidemic of 1918, those of O Combate, a newspaper with a wide circulation that was whose motto was "independence, truth and justice". In these newspapers, science, translated into medical propositions, supported social and government criticism and spread among workers the ideal of a healthy home and the importance of hygienic practices in order to remain healthy during these epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]