National Secretariat for Social Assistance (SNAS) of the Ministry of Social Development and Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger – MDS (which during 2019-2022 was designated Ministry of Citizenship – MC), by means of an inter-federative SUAS management structure. Funding is co-participatory between the three levels of government: municipal, state and federal.

States and, above all, Municipalities, through different types of institutional shelter according to the characteristics of the beneficiaries listed in the description of this initiative.

The Service was instituted and regulated from the Brazilian Typification of Social Assistance Services, published on November 11, 2009 and reissued in 2014.^1,2

Currently in operation.

It is mainly a temporary institutional (housing) sheltering service, which serves as a component of family support, promotion of citizenship, and to prevent isolation, etc.

N/A

Homeless people and beggars (including due to migration and human trafficking), or who are dependent (e.g. children, the elderly and people with disabilities who depend on someone else) but are unable to live with their guardians due to rights violations in these family contexts (e.g. victims of domestic violence).

Homelessness and abandonment are fundamentally verified from the declaration made by the population interested in receiving the benefit. The prioritization of care considers the analysis of the social assistance teams, and in many cases results from referrals made by the Justice and Rights Guarantee System (SGD)[i], including precautionary measures removing children and adolescents from their guardians, or in support of victims of domestic violence, victims of human trafficking and other similar conditions. 

There is a systemic effort to register benefited people in the Single Registry, although this is not a requirement for access to the service. The registration of beneficiaries in the Single Registry is done to enable referencing to other policies to which the person is eligible.

The information declared to the Single Registry is fundamentally self-declaratory. The Single Registry makes annual cross-checks with other administrative records to validate its information, which is self-declared by the population. Cases of inconsistency pointed out by these checks, however, do not lead to interruptions in access to nationally typified SUAS services (although they may lead to such impediments for other programs that use the tool and whose eligibility is defined by more parametric criteria of income and family composition, such as the Bolsa Familia Program - PBF and the Continuous Cash Benefit - BPC).  Yet, the link with SAI generates an opportunity to carry out registration updates of its beneficiaries whose declared information may be questioned by cross-checks with other databases.

Although the Monthly Service Record System (RMA) of SUAS does not provide inputs to estimate the coverage of SAI taken individually, the SUAS Census Sheltering Units express the aggregate coverage of SAI and the Communal Housing Services (SAR), indicating 1,047,063.00 individual beneficiaries per year³.

There is the offer of temporary shelter in specific institutions according to each target group and the peculiarities of the violations of rights that generate the homelessness situation, as follows:

• Institutional Care Home and Institutional Shelter for children and adolescents (including children with disabilities) – in a place as close as possible to the place of origin of the beneficiaries, ensuring that members of the same family stay together.

• Institutional Shelter and Halfway Home for adults and families, ensuring that members of the same family stay together;

• Institutional Shelter for women in situations of violence – whose shelters must have a confidential location; 

• Inclusive residences for youth and adults with disabilities – whose shelters must be properly adapted;

• Institutional Care Home and Institutional Shelter for the Elderly (with and without disabilities, to avoid segregation).

In addition, there is provision for victims of human trafficking and victims of domestic violence to be sheltered in secrecy to safeguard their integrity.

In addition to offering shelter, there is also provision of social assistance services, referral and other activities established according to the best judgment of the social assistance teams.

Beneficiaries begin to reside temporarily in the Institutional Sheltering spaces, where they receive additional permanent social assistance.

SUAS funding is shared by the three levels of government (Federal Government, states and municipalities). Resources are allocated in blocks and minimums, which have some flexibility to finance the various SUAS initiatives (see Policy Brief on SUAS financing). The table below illustrates the budget executions (co-financing) of the Federal Government for discretionary actions of the National Secretariat for Social Assistance/Social Assistance Fund (SNAS/FNAS) between 2002 and 2022 (in real values corrected to December 31, 2022). These values encompass the entire universe of services, programs, costing of management activities and investment of SUAS, so they do not refer only to the costs of SAI.

Federal budget executions with discretionary actions of SNAS/ FNAS between 2002 and 2022 (in real values adjusted for December 31, 2022)[i]

Although we did not find consolidated values on the resources specifically directed to financing the SAI, it is assumed that the Fixed Minimums of High Complexity I and II (namely, High Complexity I Minimum – Child/ adolescent; High Complexity I Minimum, High Complexity II Minimum – Street Pop – Sheltering Service for Adults and Families; and High Complexity II Minimum– Inclusive Residence) are the most directed to financing the SAI, the Communal Housing Services (SAR) and the Foster Family Service (SFA/PFA). In 2022, the Federal Government transferred a total of R$ 73,065,520.73 to these Minimums[ii] (an amount corresponding to 5% of the total expenses of the Federal Government specifically directed to the 12 social assistance services nationally typified by SUAS this year).

[ii] Minimum values extracted from (GoB, Min. Social Development 2023a) and associated with specific services according to the authors' interpretation from (GoB, Min. Social Development 2013; Public Prosecutor's Office of Bahia, n.d.)

A quasi-experimental academic study points out that the implementation of SUAS generated expansion and improvement in the provision of services, as well as improvement of administrative capacity at the municipal level, even controlling for more specific political factors⁴. 

However, we did not identify robust studies on the impacts of SAI in a more specific way.

There are specific provisions for families to be sheltered without separation, and also for children being sheltered without their legal guardians to be sheltered in specific institutions for people of this age group. In these cases, siblings or children from the same family must be kept together in the same residence. In general, children should be housed in places as close as possible to the communities in which they were raised.

There are specific provisions for people of different sexes to be sheltered in different places, to safeguard individuality and reduce the chances of sexual violence in the shelter itself. In addition, victims of domestic violence and human trafficking (which predominantly afflict women) must be sheltered in secrecy to reduce the chance that their aggressors will find them.

Guidelines and references for other networks such as education, health and basic social protection, of medium and high complexity, in addition to interaction with the Justice system and SGD.

The specific adaptations of SAI varied greatly in each context, given the flexibility of state and municipal teams to adapt according to the specific needs of each context. However, there was a set of more structuring actions with an effect on SUAS in general, such as:

• Several municipal teams developed voluntary joint efforts to support the application for Emergency Aid (AE, acronym in Portuguese) via application, although SUAS was not directly involved in AE.

• The Federal Government maintained the IGD-Aid payments even with the temporary suspension of SUAS responsibilities in support of the program (and the PBF program itself) in 2020 and much of 2021.

• The Federal Government generated instructional material with service protocols considering the challenge of avoiding agglomeration.

• Through Ordinance MC No. 369, of April 29, 2020, the Federal Government distributed R$ 2.4 billion to SUAS as extraordinary credit distributed as follows among the municipalities with the highest prevalence of elderly, PwD, migrants and homeless people:

  • R$ 9.1 million was transferred to the interiorization of Venezuelan migrants and refugees;

  • R$ 158.1 million were allocated to the purchase of PPE for SUAS professionals working on the front line, serving, for example, sheltered elderly, homeless people and victims of rights violations;

  • R$ 185.6 million were transferred to the purchase of food from the elderly and people with disabilities served in the SUAS network;

  • R$ 577.7 million for the co-financing of social assistance actions, according to the needs of each location considering the pandemic.

• Through Ordinances MC No. 378, of May 7, 2020, and MC No. 468, of August 13, 2020, R$ 1.5 billion were also transferred to: (a) the reorganization of activities in SUAS units; (b) the purchase of other items necessary to deal with the emergency; or (c) the expansion of social assistance offers during the pandemic. Of these:

  • l$1 billion was specifically intended to reinforce basic social protection actions;

  • R$ 437.2 million were specifically intended to reinforce Specialized Social Protection actions^5,6,7.
     

In addition to the transfer of funds, several technical guidance notes on work in the context of the pandemic were released by the MDS.