Brazil

Survival Strategies on Brazilian Streets

On the streets of Brazilian cities, the homeless have developed a variety of ways to resist helplessness and attend to basic human needs. One of the most pressing daily problems, of course, is to find a place to stay, to create a makeshift habitat or sleeping arrangement that provides some sense of personal space and physical protection. The results of this creative practice are fully apparent on Brazilian streets.

Also apparent are their income-generating strategies. These vary from city to city, but the homeless recycler is a familiar figure in the urban Brazilian landscape. Rescuing discarded materials and products, the homeless recycler navigates the city daily, often pulling a wooden wagon or other cart through dense traffic, sometimes under difficult tropical weather conditions. It is very hard work. Many follow set routines and routes as they sort items and load their wagons. Their routes always lead eventually to a recycle center or cooperative. Here, the recyclers disassemble products to extract components for resale; materials are reintegrated into the productive cycle. The cooperative is a collective project managed and organized by the recyclers themselves, many of whom are no longer homeless. In fact, the cooperative represents an impressive movement of social solidarity. Throughout Brazil, there is an informal economy built on the reuse of waste, with a variety of recycling strategies used by homeless people to help generate some income.

Other survival strategies pursued by the Brazilian homeless including panhandling in public spaces, peddling small goods at street corners, loading trucks, serving as nonofficial security guards for parked cars, and many other informal, very low-paying odd jobs.

...