City of São Paulo approaches 100 thousand; The survey is from the Brazilian Observatory of Public Policies with the Homeless Population (OBPopRua), from UFMG
The homeless population was 358,553 people in October, according to a survey by the Brazilian Observatory of Public Policies with the Homeless Population (OBPopRua), at the Federal University of (UFMG). The survey indicates predominance in the Southeast states. In the state of , there are 148,730 people living on the streets, of which 99,477 live in the capital.
The states of , with 33,081 people, and Minas Gerais, with 32,685, come in second and third place in the survey. The three federative units (UF) account for around 60% of the country’s homeless population. The survey considers data from the CadÚnico platform, which centralizes social assistance records from municipalities.
The three UFs in the South region appear slightly lower in the survey, although with a large difference in absolute numbers, as well as Bahia, Ceará and Roraima:
- Paraná: 17,091 people living on the streets;
- Bahia: 16.603;
- Rio Grande do Sul: 15.906;
- Ceará: 13.625;
- Santa Catarina: 11.805;
- Roraima: 9,954 people;
Alarming increase
The northern state of the country is surprising for having more homeless people than the Federal District, Pernambuco and Amazonas, among other states with larger populations and a greater number of large cities. For comparison purposes, the capital of Roraima, Boa Vista, has less than 500 thousand residents, while Brasília, Recife and Manaus have more than one and a half million inhabitants.
This disconnection is even more important if growth is compared, since the capital of Roraima had just over 1,000 homeless people in 2018, almost ten times less than in the last survey. This growth is much higher than that of the country, which went from 138 thousand to 358 thousand people, and that of the capital of São Paulo, from almost 39 thousand to around 100 thousand, and caught the attention of the Observatory.
“Non-compliance with the 1988 Federal Constitution regarding homeless people continues in Brazil, with very little progress in guaranteeing the rights of this population, which is majority black and historically so vulnerable in our country”, states the Observatory, in a note.
The researchers also drew attention to the lack of transparency in data on the homeless population, which should be public, open, transparent and accessible to the whole of society.
*With information from Agência Brasil
Published by Nícolas Robert
