Homeless people in Brazil: Corona misery in wealthy São Paulo

The social consequences of Corona in Brazil are devastating. Many low-wage earners have lost their jobs – and then their homes too. The number of homeless has also increased dramatically in wealthy São Paulo.

Ramon Almeida carefully buttons his white baker’s jacket, between the hairnet and face mask you can only see his dark eyes flashing. “The most dangerous thing on the road is that you make yourself too comfortable,” he says, somewhat surprisingly. There are aid organizations that provide you with what you need to survive. “The danger is that you will be satisfied with it.”

There have been homeless people in Brazil’s rich economic metropolis São Paulo for years, but Corona has increased the contrast between the prosperity of one and the poverty of the other to the almost unbearable.

Except in the neighborhoods of the rich, you can see people everywhere in the city who carry their few belongings with them and have found temporary accommodation under bridges, in parks, in front of churches or train stations. Since the pandemic, more and more people in Brazil who recently had a reasonably normal existence have ended up on the streets – but mostly on the verge of poverty.

Ramon wasn’t rich either, but he could make a living from his job in the discotheque. When the establishment had to close due to Corona, he was desperately looking for new work – without success. The money ran out quickly and then the apartment was gone. From then on, Ramon lived on the street.

Shocked by life on the street

In the morning he waited for an aid organization’s VW bus to distribute bread and coffee. At lunchtime he went to a soup kitchen and in the evening he fought for a place to sleep in a homeless asylum – which didn’t always work. “I just have to look after myself, I have neither family nor children, life on the street is easier,” says Ramon. But it was still a shock to him.

Violence, drugs and hopelessness are omnipresent, and because of Corona, entire families with small children suddenly find themselves in this environment. In Brazil’s service society, the so-called informal sector is normal. Many of them are practically employed as day laborers in the catering trade or the trades, without an employment contract and therefore without any right to even minimal state support.

According to the São Paulo city administration, there were said to have been almost 25,000 homeless before the pandemic. Aid organizations consider this number to be too low and estimate that the number of homeless people has increased by 50 to 60 percent due to Corona. This is also due to the corona policy of President Jair Bolsonaro, who is still playing down the pandemic even after 570,000 corona deaths in Brazil and considers vaccinations to be superfluous.

Treated people “like rubbish”

One of the harshest critics of the far-right president is Padre Júlio Lancellotti, a priest from São Paulo who works for the homeless. He accuses Bolsonaro of simply wanting to get rid of the poorer population in Brazil. “The government often claims that it makes politics for everyone, but it doesn’t,” said Padre Júlio in an interview with the ARD.

Sometimes people are disposed of like rubbish: “People you want to get rid of because you consider them useless. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing here.” Padre Júlio speaks of a “murderous capitalism” in Brazil, and in fact several socio-political grievances clash in the country.

Low wages, high rents

The metropolitan area of ​​São Paulo, with its 21 million inhabitants, attracts people from rural parts of Brazil who are hoping for work and prosperity in the megacity. There is a lack of living space, more affordable anyway. At the same time, the army of competing willing workers ensures that wages for simple work are extremely low.

Corona also brings restrictions for the wealthy in the villa districts of São Paulo, but the people at the lower end of the income spectrum plunge into misery overnight. The state emergency corona aid of the Brazilian federal government has been cut several times, but above all it is too low to save the recipients from poverty. There is not enough money to rent a room anyway.

Get out of misery

After three weeks on the street, Ramon took the first step out of misery. The aid organization, which gives thousands of poor people in São Paulo free bread and coffee for breakfast every day, trains apprentices and places them in rooms for the duration of their apprenticeship. A man in his thirties could get hold of such a position with patience and energy.

Ramon is now learning to be a baker, putting sweet rolls in the oven, as he once got them for breakfast as a homeless person, and hopes that the Corona crisis in Brazil will be over before his apprenticeship ends.

You can see these and other reports in Weltspiegel – on Sunday at 7:20 p.m. in Das Erste.