THE homelessness is a serious problem experienced in cities from Brazil and from several other places in the world. It is the lack of access to places with minimal conditions to be used as housing. There are many people living on the streets or living in inadequate houses, such as shanty towns and makeshift shacks.
According to estimates recently carried out by the United Nations (UN), more than 100 million people around the world do not have a place to live, while more than 1 billion live in housing. inadequate. This problem is a reproduction of social and income inequalities existing in societies.
In Brazil, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), more than 11 million people live in slums or in precarious housing. If we consider that an adequate housing is a place that has a water supply system, sewage, garbage collection and, in the maximum, two people per bedroom, only 52% of the Brazilian population lives in regular conditions of residence, according to the IBGE. It is also worth mentioning the fact that more than 32 thousand people live on the streets in the country.
There are many houses that do not even have access to the electricity grid, most of them built as slums and squatters irregularities, generally carried out by a part of the population that cannot afford to pay rent or finance a house. own. Most of these houses are located in risky areas, such as riverbanks prone to flooding and steep hills, where there can be landslides during rainy seasons.
The housing problems in the world are more intensely manifested in underdeveloped countries, those that have more social limitations, a greater level of poverty and accentuated inequality. In these countries, the process of urbanization it has been happening very quickly, forming very large cities, but without the infrastructure (water, sewage and others) necessary to receive this population. Thus, in these countries, especially in Brazil, the manifestation of the process of slums.
Area with substandard housing in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa
Furthermore, the greater the social inequalities, the more intense the housing problems tend to be. Therefore, in addition to providing housing assistance and programs to help the poorest population, the government needs implement income distribution measures in order to reduce these existing inequalities and their impact on space geographical. For this to happen, it is necessary to generate more jobs and improve the quality of education and health.
By Me. Rodolfo Alves Pena
