The new poverties of Brazil – Antonello Veneri

A child sucks his thumb embraced by his mother. Passers-by notice the scene, but carry on with a hurried step. Mother and son sleep on the pavement of Avenida Paulista, in front of a bank. Next to them is a sign with the words: “Please help us to buy a toy”. Across the street a man, two women and five children share a few square meters in front of the Saõ Luís Gonzaga church. They ask for money and food. I speak to Fernanda, 32, one of these street mothers. She lived in Guarulhos, in the municipality of Grande São Paolo, and worked as a domestic worker. “With the pandemic the work first decreased, then it disappeared. I was living in rent, but now I can’t pay anymore. I’ve been on the street for three days. Maybe I will go to live with a niece ”.

In 2019, 24,300 people lived in the hostels or under the viaducts of São Paolo. By the end of 2021 they had risen to 31,800, according to data from the municipality of the city. There are no up-to-date studies in the other large cities of Brazil, but during the pandemic I was able to document a considerable increase in people living on the street, including signs at traffic lights and long queues for food distribution.

The pandemic and the political-economic crisis in the country have pushed even those who previously had a roof to life on the street, albeit a precarious one. “The systematic dismantling of the psychological and social assistance centers managed by the public health service (Sus) has greatly affected people suffering from mental disorders,” explains Leonardo Rodrigues, of the NGO Casa da Sopa, in Fortaleza. Casa da Sopa, with which I have been collaborating since 2011, is known throughout Brazil for the work it does with people living on the street.

Women out of the statistics
“It is clear that this growth is not only due to the pandemic. Various measures have affected the most vulnerable, even excluded from emergency aid. Many people do not have access to the internet, do not have an email address and therefore have not been entered into the government’s computer system. Technological exclusion has increased inequality, ”explains Gilcilene Pereira Silva, coordinator of Salvador’s Pastoral do povo da rua. “What has really changed in recent years is the profile of these people. Previously, mostly black men with no family ties lived on the streets. In 2021, on the other hand, we find entire families without a roof ”.

The problem is that women like Fernanda, the mother who sleeps in the avenida Paulista, are not included in the official statistics. Leonardo Rodrigues explains to me that there are at least three profiles of excluded people. The so-called “provisionals”, inhabitants of the suburbs who migrate to the city center, “spend two or three days on the street to receive donations and food, then return home,” he explains. Then there are those who live on the street in the suburbs and are never reached by those who should take a census of them. Finally, there are the people who rented sleeping quarters in cubicles, but who make do with parking, selling food or doing occasional jobs. With the lockdowns and the empty streets all these activities have been interrupted, leaving many people who worked day to day without protection without income overnight.

“These people live on the edge of vulnerability. Any economic alteration forces them to live on the street. They are not included in the statistics but they are certainly part of it ”.

The activist and cultural producer Marcelo Teles, companion of projects and long walks in Salvador, adds a profile: the people “who have just been evicted. They bring with them the TV, the sofa and other personal effects. They were evicted despite the ban on eviction approved during the pandemic ”. Shirley Bonfim, 44, and Marcio Santiago, 34, fall into this category. Married for seven years, they lost their jobs in 2021 and today they live in a square in Salvador with objects from their old home (pans, clothes, a fan).

Shirley, who is pregnant, worked as a cook at a waterfront restaurant. Until the third wave of covid-19 “we lived at home, we had a routine, a refrigerator, an internet connection. The restaurant I used to work in has closed three times. In the end it never reopened. We’ve all been fired. I’m not happy on the street. Life with my husband is the only thing that saves me ”.

Our nocturnal conversation takes place in the Comercio, a central district of Salvador that teems with life during the day and empties at night. “NGOs, associations and people of the church come through here to offer a hot dish. Those who live on the street depend on the charity of others. When I arrived here in June, we used to eat leftover food from the restaurants, but now I’m scared. A boy who ate leftovers died. Another got poisoned. I prefer the dishes offered by the church, ”Shirley says.

Marcelo Teles is part of the Resistência preta (black resistance) collective, which has delivered thousands of baskets of food products as part of Do you have what hunger?, a solidarity campaign. “Wanting to see the bright side, I would say that there has been a great return of human feelings. Many people have contributed donations, especially the economically disadvantaged. Here in Salvador the poor have helped the other poor ”.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)