Developing policies for the inclusion of homeless people: advances and challenges of intersectoriality in health and social assistance policies

Abstract

This paper analyzes the elaboration of the Policy for Inclusion of Homeless People in Brazil, within the scope of the Social Assistance and Health actions in Distrito Federal. Specifically, the analysis identifies conflicts; traces the actions and strategies adopted; and verifies the advancement and challenges that marked this context. This qualitative study of descriptive character used documentary analysis as methodology and included 20 semi-structured interviews with key informants. The collected material was assessed based on Stephen Ball’s approach to the policy cycle. The results indicate the centrality and induction of the district policy by the social assistance policy, whose managers acted in a top-down manner in the studied Intersectoral Committees. The context of the practice, characterized as an arena of conflict and contestation, revealed the closure of the decisionmaking process and of democratic participation, adopting a conduct of state hegemony. A need for new management designs aimed at producing intersectoral measures for homeless people in the Federal District was identified.