Residents Go to Court against Hotel for Crack Users in Downtown São Paulo

04/16/2015 - 08h34

A group of residents in the Campos Elíseos neighborhood in downtown São Paulo, filed a lawsuit to try to stop the opening of a new hotel for crack users in the area.

The main argument put forward by residents and traders is that the accommodation attracts drug dealers and users to the area.

The site for the new hotel was chosen after the mayoral office learned from the press that other lodgings linked to the social project called "Open Arms" ("De Braços Abertos"), which was created to treat crack users, were in precarious conditions and will be discredited.

The "Open Arms" program offers street sweeping work for drug users who take up treatment. They also receive a salary of U$ 5 (R$15) per day and are entitled to hotel rooms to stay in.

Financial manager and resident of Campos Elíseos, Antonio Iézio Silva, 55, says that the intention of the mayoral office is to destroy the area. "The city should use that money to buy a place with doctors, psychologists and specialists to treat these people [addicts]. It is not leaving the drugged near the dealer that the problem will be solved. They are not concerned with our safety."

The Municipal Secretary for Social Welfare, Luciana Temer, told Folha that she and the Sé area deputy mayor, Alcides Amazonas, pledged to prevent that the region may be disadvantaged by the arrival of the hotel.

"We won't allow tents to be put up on sidewalks or any problem to come about that did not exist before the hotel was set up. We will select users who already have shown significant improvements in treatment to be sent to the region," Temer said.

Translated by CRISTIANE COSTA LIMA

Read the article in the original language

	Rubens Cavallari/Folhapress
	Antonio Iézio Silva, resident of Campos Elíseos, says that the intention of the mayoral office is to destroy the area.