After order from Moraes, government announces R$1 billion for homeless people

This Monday (11), the federal government announced R$982 million for the implementation of the “Visible Streets Plan – For the right to the future of the homeless population”. This is a response to the order from the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes, for the government to create a National Police focused on homeless people.

According to a statement from Planalto, the money will be distributed across “seven axes”: Food assistance (R$575.7 million); health (R$304.1 million); institutional violence (R$56 million); citizenship, education and culture (R$41.1 million); housing (R$3.7 million); work and income (R$ 1.2 million); and data production and management (R$ 155.9 thousand).

The program includes the publication of the decree that regulates Law nº 14,489/22, which became known as the Padre Julio Lancellotti Law and prohibits the “use of hostile construction techniques in free spaces for public use”.

The program also establishes a Working Group to evaluate and propose methodologies for producing information on the homeless population.

“The coordination involves 11 ministries, in partnership with state and municipal governments and in dialogue with social movements of the homeless population, representatives of the Legislative and Judiciary powers, Public Ministry and Public Defender’s Office, organized civil society, business sector, universities, workers”, says an excerpt from Planalto’s statement.

STF interference

In August, the STF minister, Alexandre de Moraes, determined that states and municipalities could no longer remove homeless people from public spaces or collect their belongings against their will, and forced governments to adopt a broad set of measures – prepared by him own – to solve the social problem.

On that occasion, the minister gave a deadline of 120 days for the federal government to present a plan for the implementation of a national policy aimed at homeless people, and demanded that, within the same period, the city halls of all Brazilian municipalities carry out a “detailed diagnosis of the situation in the respective territories, with an indication of the number of homeless people by geographic area, number and location of shelter spaces and food supply capacity”.

Moraes’ decision was motivated by a request made, in 2022, by the Rede and PSOL parties and the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST).