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 the Specialized Reference Centers for Homeless Population (POP Centers).

The Service was instituted and regulated from the Brazilian Typification of Social Assistance Services, published on November 11, 2009 and reissued in 2014^1,2,3.

Currently in operation.

Psychosocial support through a service to Strengthen Community and Family Bonds, in the form of care in social assistance centers.

In cases where the inclusion of people is determined as part of protective measures issued by the Judiciary Branch, it also ends up working as Support to carry out Justice and Citizenship activities (JCA).

N/A

People who use the streets as a living and/or survival space.

Homelessness is fundamentally verified from the declaration made by the population seeking the benefit. Prioritization of services is based on the analysis conducted by the social assistance teams, which may also incorporate referrals from other services and public policies. Among the nationally typified services of SUAS, the Specialized Care for Vulnerable Populations (SEAS) tends to be an important access route to SEPS. 

As in the case of the other SUAS initiatives, there is a systematic effort to register the people benefited in the Single Registry, fundamentally based on self-declared information. Registration in the Single Registry, however, has a further sense of expanding access to other initiatives and, therefore, does not affect SEPS eligibility.

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. However, cases of inconsistency identified through these checks do not result in interruptions to access nationally standardized SUAS services. They may, however, lead to restrictions for other programs that use the tool and have more parametric eligibility criteria based on income and family composition, such as the Bolsa Família Program (PBF) and the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC). Yet, the link with SEPS generates an opportunity to update the registration of its beneficiaries whose declared information may be questioned by cross-checks with other databases.

There are a total of 246 POP Centers in Brazil. Quantity of coverage cannot be estimated based on the CREAS Census, POP Centers or Day Centers, nor on the CREAS Monthly Service Record System (RMA). The RMA POP Center, however, reports a monthly average of 43,654 people served per month, each receiving an average of 5.6 visits per month. The demographic profile of this audience is as follows⁴:
 

• 45% men and 7% women aged between 18 and 39 years;

• 36% men and 5% women aged between 40 and 59 years;

• 5% elderly men and 1% elderly women.

In addition, the characterization of this public according to the factors of vulnerability and violations to which they are subject indicates that 49% are users of crack or other illicit drugs; 29% are migrants and 6% are people with mental illness or disorder.  

A safe structure is provided, including bathrooms, access to a refrigerator, hygiene items, basic necessities, and potentially meals.

Along with these resources, activities are offered to strengthen social bonds and provide access to additional services that support overcoming homelessness, abandonment, and other rights violations. There is flexibility for social assistance teams to propose activities that reflect local priorities and capacities. In any case, RMA reflects some guiding values that should inform the offer of activities by monitoring them through their classification according to the categories listed below:

• Meals offered; 

• Individualized service activities including:
  • Private Sheltering by a higher education professional;

  • Group/workshop with families or individuals;

  • Legal-social guidance;

  • Support for obtaining personal documentation;

  • Guidance and referral for access to BPC;

  • Guidance and referral for access to occasional benefits;

  • Guidance for access to the Single Registry and Bolsa Família Program;

  • Registration for access to the Single Registry and Bolsa Família Program;

  • Preparation of Individual or Family Monitoring Plan;

  • Mobilization and social participation actions;

  • Mobilization of the user's extended or expanded family;

  • Mobilization and strengthening of social support networks;

  • Referral to the public social assistance service network;

  • Referral to the private social assistance service network;

  • Referral of users of psychoactive substances to health network services or therapeutic communities;

  • Referral to other services of the health network;

  • Referral to education policies (youth and adults, etc.);

  • Referral to bodies for the defense of rights (Public Defender's Office, Judiciary Branch, Public Prosecutor's Office, Guardianship Council, etc.);

  • Mobilization and awareness-raising actions to face rights violations;

  • Referral of families or individuals to other policies (work, housing, etc.);

  • Monitoring of referrals made;

  • Record of consultations/monitoring in medical records;

  • Preparation of technical reports on attended cases;

  • Case study/team discussion of cases;

  • Lectures.

• Collective activities including:
  • Sports activities;

  • Musical activities (singing, playing musical instruments, etc.);

  • Art and culture activities (painting, circus, dance, theater, paper artwork, etc.);

  • Crafts (jewelry, fabric painting, embroidery, crochet, etc.);

  • Digital inclusion;

  • Language activities (essay writing, storytelling, conversation circle, etc.);

  • Activities involving food (cooking, vegetable gardens, etc.);

  • Games and activities (board games, cards, dominoes, etc.);

  • Guidance on employment and labour market;

  • Self-care activities (hygiene, food, rest);

  • Assemblies, debates and other participatory activities;

  • Outdoor activities, tours, participation in cultural and sporting events.

• Productive inclusion activities including:
  • Referral for professional training/vocational course;

  • Assignment of physical space to carry out professional training courses offered by other institutions;

  • Registration for participation in professional qualification programs;

  • Referral to work and income generation programs;

  • Referrals/coordination with the Program to Promote Access to the labour market (Acessuas Trabalho);

  • Advice for the formation of cooperatives or associations (production units);

  • Updated information on vacancies available in the labor market.

• Referral to sheltering initiatives (overnight stay or rest);

• Referral to specific initiatives for people with tuberculosis.
  
   

The service is provided at the POP Centers.

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 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 SEPS.

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

Although we did not find consolidated values on the resources specifically directed to SEPS financing, it is assumed that the Medium Complexity Fixed Minimum - Street POP Center (which is part of the Medium Complexity Specialized Social Protection Block) is the most directed to SEPS financing. In 2022, the Federal Government transferred a total of R$ 17,103,025.13 to this Minimum[i] (an amount corresponding to 1% 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 factors⁶. 

Although we have not identified robust studies on the impacts of SEPS, it is worth mentioning the qualitative analysis with coordinators of 13 POP Centers in the state of São Paulo. This study suggests that activities focused on productive inclusion and professional training are key to success in cases where the service helps individuals overcome homelessness⁷.

Apart from the general orientation of SUAS to promote the rights of children and adolescents, including PwD, there are no specific aspects aimed at this public, nor does the RMA provide data on the coverage or classification of activities that would allow us to infer a pro-children and adolescents difference in its coverage or thematic orientation.

Apart from the general orientation of SUAS to empower girls and women through its various services, including the PwD, there are no specific aspects aimed at this public, nor does RMA provide data on the coverage or classification of activities that would allow us to infer a gender difference in their coverage or thematic orientation.

The specific adaptations of SEPS 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 violation;

  • 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:

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

  • R$ 437.2 million were specifically intended to reinforce Specialized Social Protection actions.

In addition to the transfer of funds, several technical guidance notes on work in the context of the pandemic were released by the MDS.^8,9,10