In less than a week as Secretary of Human Rights and Citizenship, former councilor Soninha Francine has been working to bring to life an old project to create a campsite to house homeless people in São Paulo. The model envisages allocating land where homeless people can set up their tents and have access to bathrooms, showers, and a place to wash clothes.
One of the reasons she wants the idea to come to fruition is the worsening of the social situation of the city. According to the census, the homeless population increased 31% increase compared to the survey carried out in 2019.
"The mayor said, knowing the acuteness of the city's situation, money would not be an obstacle," he said in an interview with Folha this week. The idea first came about five years ago when she joined the secretariat of former mayor João Doria (PSDB). "When I gave an interview talking about it, they asked for my head," she says, as she was fired in the first few months of her tenure.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon