EXPERIENCES OF HOMELESS PEOPLE IN A LARGE BRAZILIAN CITY

Abstract

The study aimed to understand the experiences of individuals living on the streets, with an emphasis on the care provided for their health, identifying their difficulties, risks, family ties, and access to health care received at the Street Clinic (CR) in the city under investigation. This is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach, conducted from April to June 2018, involving men and women living on the streets who were attended to by the CR in the city. The interviews were conducted through an instrument with open-ended questions, during the sessions carried out by the CR Team. The sampling was random and the saturation criterion was used to conclude and finalize the sample. The interviews were transcribed, submitted to content analysis by Bardin (2010), and interpreted in light of the scientific literature based on relevant theoretical frameworks. The results obtained were able to provide topics such as: "Caring for health and the formal support of health services: the impact of the Street Clinic"; "Living on the streets: prejudice, the escape to drugs"; "Broken or weakened family ties"; facilitating a better understanding. Concluding that there are public policies, but it is a complex scenario that makes the implementation of these policies difficult, hindering the inclusion of this population and effective access to services and actions such as qualification for the job market and especially social projects aimed at the recidivism of these people within the family unit.