The landscape in the centers of large Brazilian cities is quite eloquent: hundreds of people sheltered under arcades, viaducts or bridges, plastic and cardboard camps in the most central squares and, in some cases, extreme pockets of misery and drug addiction, such as the infamous Crackland in downtown São Paulo, a handful of streets dominated by crack addicts. The problem of homelessness in Brazil is obvious and not new, but data shows that it has worsened enormously in recent years. The number of homeless people increased tenfold in a decade, from nearly 22,000 in 2013 to more than 227,000 this year, according to figures from the country’s Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea). To deal with this problem, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva presented on Monday a plan endowed with 982 million reais ($200 million). The project will be more centered on providing assistance to the homeless population, rather than to reintegrating them into society or tackling the circumstances that left them homeless to begin with.
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