INTRODUCTION
Social inequality is an obstacle faced by global society over time, and this struggle has produced numerous ramifications. In this sense, one of its reflections that deserves emphasis is discrimination against the poor, coined as aporophobia. Delving into the topic, it becomes apparent that this prejudice has directly reflected on the integration and protection of those with lower purchasing power in cities around the globe. However, in order to better understand its effects, this study sought to analyze impacts in Brazil, a country where social inequality is blatantly widespread.
Thus, with only this brief explanation, one can understand the importance of this object of study; only through understanding how and why aporophobia influences the right to the city and its social functions will it be possible to understand what viable ways exist to address this adversity and foster greater inclusion among citizens. To conduct this qualitative research, the hypothetical-deductive methodology was applied, using dogmatic-legal and hermeneutic procedures. Furthermore, to achieve these results, bibliographic research was conducted, analyzing legislation, in-depth academic studies on the topic, and journalistic materials concerning practical cases.
Moving forward, the research was divided into four chapters. In the very first one, the study aimed to understand the occurrence of inequality in Brazil, as well as to conceptualize the form of discrimination under analysis: aporophobia. In addition, it was observed that it was possible to relate this prejudice to the noticeable exclusion of the underprivileged from cities.
Continuing, in the face of this visible existing impact, the research sought to understand whether Brazilian legislation had any provision that would protect its citizens from the hostility they face. Thus, the Federal Constitution and the City Statute were analyzed in search of rules protecting the right to the city and the social function of property. However, it highlighted what several scholars have pointed out: despite the rule, urban spatial segregation generates the subsequent alienation of the population.
Given the reality briefly observed, the third topic aimed to delve into this exclusion in the urban space. Thus, the concept of hygienist policies was further refined, in addition to the direct analysis of a bill, a decree, practical cases reported in the press, and, finally, the viewpoint of a specialist in the urban planning field. Lastly, the fourth chapter aimed to understand what appropriate measures and paths would be required to change the current scenario—one in which a more inclusive urbanization would be achieved, welcoming all without discrimination against social groups, and where the basic rights of all, such as the dignity of the human person, would be respected.
1. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND APOROPHOBIA
Social inequality is a problem plaguing modern society, causing severe damage to the world's population. In this sense, the global community, aiming to address this adversity through the United Nations General Assembly, included social inequality as a goal to be overcome in drafting the sustainable development goals, aimed at "ending poverty, protecting the environment and the climate, and ensuring that people everywhere can enjoy peace and prosperity" (Organização das Nações Unidas, 2015). With this focus, the first of these goals, scheduled for completion by 2030, is SDG 1, which aims to "eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere" (Organização das Nações Unidas, 2015). At this point, to specify the analysis, it should be highlighted that Brazil committed to these goals, including SDG 1.
However, the analyzed data demonstrate that this prominent goal has not been achieved in the country, as shown in the report published by the non-profit organization Oxfam Brasil in January 2024, which stated that the richest 1% of the Brazilian population concentrates 63% of active income, whereas the poorest 50% hold only 2% of this share. In other words, it is evident that inequality is a real adversity, especially when considering Brazil. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the problems of inequality go far beyond the obvious, leading to a variety of different repercussions, such as discrimination against individuals, exclusion from the community, and even verbal and physical attacks against marginalized people. With this in mind, it is necessary to present the concept developed by the Spanish philosopher Adela Cortina (2017), who coined the aversion and rejection of poor people as "aporophobia." The author delved into the topic and, as can be seen in an excerpt from her book "Aporofobia, el rechazo al pobre - Un desafío para la democracia," holds the following view:
Desgraciadamente, la vida cotidiana no puede entenderse sin poner nombre a ese mundo de fobias como las mencionadas que, como veremos, consisten en el rechazo a personas concretas por tener una característica que las inscribe en un determinado grupo al que se desprecia o teme, o ambas cosas a la vez, precisamente por gozar de esa característica. En ese mundo existe el rechazo al pobre, la aporofobia (Cortina, 2017).
At this point, bringing the concept into reality, in the 21st century, this form of prejudice represents an obstacle to democracy and its just progress in Latin American countries. This assertion stems from the fact that this discrimination derives from society's negative perception that the poor cannot contribute to economic advancement, consequently delaying the country's progress. In this way, this minority is discriminated against and rejected in Western countries, under the prejudiced claim of representing a potential risk to the prosperity of society (Zeifert; Sturza; Agnoletto, 2019).
In the meantime, it can be emphasized that one of the reflections of aporophobia is that, given the vulnerability of the victims, they are displaced and driven out of urban centers. This occurs because the quality and possibility of urban life have become mere commodities, while consumerism, the entertainment and knowledge industry, and leisure have become the focal point in discussions about urban political economy, pushing humanitarian issues away from the center of these debates (Harvey, 2012). Thus, the reverberation of these changes in the direction of urban public policies is emphasized, reinforcing aporophobia and linking directly to the "consumer society," in which there is an increase in segregating behavior among the population, magnified by social networks. In this movement, there is an expansion of the mindset that, in this type of society characterized by excess consumption, those who do not possess it must be excluded, consequently becoming marginalized and isolated in cities (Cavalcante, 2019).
Thus, one can catch a glimpse of the social inequality faced in Brazil. With this, it becomes possible to understand its exclusionary impact on society and perceive how certain discriminatory forms can develop and take root, such as aporophobia.
2. THE RIGHT TO THE CITY AND THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF URBAN PROPERTY
Before delving into the problems of modern urbanization and the exclusion resulting from aporophobia in Brazil, it is necessary to understand how the State perceives the right to the city and the social function of property. In this perspective, it is important first to highlight positively that Brazilian legislation perceives the right to the city on the same level as other collective and diffuse rights. By way of example, it holds the same importance as the interests of the consumer, the popular economy, and the environment (Saule Júnior, 2005).
Furthermore, regarding its legal protection, it is provided for in the Federal Constitution, such as in Article 182, which provides that policies for urban development must aim to carry out the social functions of the city and ensure the stability of its citizens (Brasil, 1988). Complementing the Federal Constitution, it is essential to mention the existence of the City Statute, which reinforces the objective of the supreme law in its opening articles.
By way of example, Article 1, sole paragraph, is cited, establishing that rules governing public order and social welfare shall aim at the collective interest, safety, and well-being of the inhabitants, in addition to environmental preservation (Brasil, 2001). Furthermore, Article 2 of the same law provides, throughout its text, general guidelines regarding urban policy, with the aim of achieving the social functions of the city and its properties (Brasil, 2001).
Thus, it becomes evident that in Brazil there are norms guaranteeing the population the right to the city, to urban property, and to its social functions, representing citizens' access to urbanity and public areas, which they may enjoy free from hostility or discrimination. In the view of urban law scholar Saule Júnior (2005), the right to the city is the minimum requirement to create the possibility of having “just, humane, and democratic” cities. However, he recognizes that it remains an obstacle for twenty-first-century society to ensure that citizens' rights are guaranteed and respected through democratic governance, considering cities as rich territories with multiple economic, environmental, political, and sociocultural possibilities (Saule Júnior, 2005).
However, the democratic development of cities is a challenge, which reveals unequal growth within a single urban space, creating diverse regions akin to “micro-states.” For example, one can cite the coexistence within the same city of affluent neighborhoods endowed with various invested structures—such as leisure areas and private security—alongside marginalized neighborhoods lacking even basic sanitation systems, in addition to having deficient infrastructure, such as unpaved streets. Such disparities lead different sectors of the city to govern and function independently, with the persistence and upkeep of each remaining autonomous and isolated (Balbo, 1993 apud Harvey, 2012).
In this sense, it is possible to infer that this urban segregation fosters the understanding that each social group has its own place in the city. However, this conception causes conflicts within urban space, such as over the use of public spaces, where, under hygienist policies grounded in promoting security and fighting crime and drugs, it leads to the exclusion of people, stripping these areas of their ordinary and collective character (Giese; Silva; Menegat, 2023). In light of this estrangement, antagonistic interventions occur in architecture and public urban space. On the one hand, there is urban kindness, in which architectural innovations target the collectivity, embracing diversity; on the other hand, there are aporophobic practices, featuring constructions that harass and demean people living in poverty, especially the unhoused (Giese; Silva; Menegat, 2023). In this way, fostering a sense of belonging, characterizing the urban being and their citizenship, only becomes increasingly difficult to achieve and maintain, especially given the aggravating factor of neoliberal philosophies (Harvey, 2012).
Therefore, although legislation reinforces the right to the city and its social functions, the defense of hygienist policies undermines its effectiveness, as it grants indirect permission for hostile action against social groups, reinforcing aporophobia in society, with the resulting exclusion of the community from public areas (Giese; Silva; Menegat, 2023). Thus, with an understanding of the legislation and a brief account of its shortcomings, an in-depth study of urbanization and the effective exclusion of social groups is warranted, as will be undertaken in the following section.
3. URBANIZATION VS. EXCLUSION
Aporophobia is the aversion to the poor resulting from direct or indirect discrimination based on socioeconomic phenomena that drive a large portion of the population into extreme poverty. Because of this, alongside the right to the city and the social function of property, one must examine how municipalities at times attempt to curtail these individuals' access to, or expel them from, the only place where they can establish themselves: the street. Municipalities resort to hygienist policies, along with the support of segments of society, to perpetuate discrimination against socioeconomically vulnerable people. Consequently, there arises a need to understand what hygienist policies are, examine some cities that have attempted and implemented such policies, and analyze why they are directly unconstitutional for violating the right to the city, as well as basic human rights inherent to any Brazilian citizen, regardless of their economic “status.”
Hygienist policies are governmental measures that seek to “cleanse” cities through means such as the destruction of encampments where people experiencing homelessness live, their removal to other locations, or even the prohibition of begging. They encompass any means employed by the government, typically at the municipal level, to remove unhoused people from the streets. In most cases, these policies are cloaked in justifications related to the need for “urban maintenance, crime suppression, and ensuring the dignity of people experiencing homelessness” (Toloni, Bolandim, 2023, p. 701). From this perspective, it is evident that administrations, through the adoption and maintenance of hygienist policies coupled with the incitement and constant association of these individuals with crime, perpetuate societal discrimination, which is nothing more than forms of expelling those whom society does not want to see and chooses to ignore.
One hygienist policy in which the approach is crystal clear is hostile architecture, which can be defined as that cruel and aggressive manifestation carried out in public or private spaces to make the presence of people experiencing homelessness practically impossible in those locations. In this sense, Andrea Cezar and Vera Hirata (2023, p. 6) note:
The upsurge in poverty brought into debate acts of hostility and aggression against the poor in urban space, originating from both private and public individuals and institutions, such as installing fences, boulders, or sharp objects under overpasses, marquees, places that could serve as shelter, or buildings (even churches), with the intent of preventing the presence of unhoused people, as well as public guidelines in several cities advising against giving alms. Such a situation characterizes the regrettable fight against the poor, not against poverty.
This is the case with certain bills and laws passed in various Brazilian municipalities that seek to marginalize people experiencing homelessness. As an example, Bill no. 57/2023 of Vitória, Espírito Santo, stands out, which seeks to prohibit the occupation of sidewalks and squares by anyone intending to establish a dwelling there, under the justification of harm to the environment, health, and public safety.
For instance, in 2025, proceedings were initiated by the Public Defender's Office of Santa Catarina to investigate an “action” carried out by the Florianópolis Municipal Government through the Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance, in which agents are stationed at the city's bus terminal, and if anyone arrives without a job or permanent housing, they are given a ticket back to their place of origin. The city's mayor asserts the need to “ensure control over who arrives” and that “if they arrived without a job and a place to live, we give them a return ticket” (G1, 2025). In response, Public Defender Ana Paula Fão Fischer, coordinator of the Center for Citizenship, Human Rights, and Collective Actions (NUCIDH) of the Public Defender's Office of the State of Santa Catarina, stated to the news outlet G1 Globo that “the video released by the city hall conveys a discourse of stigmatization and exclusion by implying that poor people cannot remain in the city. In addition to violating human dignity, this may represent an infringement of the fundamental right to come, go, and remain, guaranteed by the Constitution” (G1, 2025).
Despite numerous examples of attempts and some actual implementations of hygienist policies, it must be emphasized that Brazil possesses certain measures aimed at curbing aporophobia and its manifestations, such as Decree No. 7,053 of December 23, 2009, which establishes the National Policy for the Homeless Population and the Intersectoral Follow-up and Monitoring Committee, among other provisions. However, Article 3 of the aforementioned decree stipulates that adherence by states and municipalities is voluntary. This raises questions about the purpose of a decree that establishes non-binding guidelines and objectives to improve the living conditions of people experiencing homelessness, thereby allowing the continued neglect of these individuals by governmental entities.
4. PATHS TOWARD INCLUSIVE URBANIZATION
Building on the issue raised in the previous chapter, it must be noted that this study does not seek to question or address the country's federative structure, given that this is the reason why a decree on public policies cannot be made binding on all federative entities. However, it seeks to understand how the State fails to offer effective solutions to resolve a major existing social problem, given that people experiencing homelessness routinely have their constitutional rights violated. In this regard, Augusto Resende and Carlos Machado (2021, p. 9) state:
Human beings are biologically aporophobic, since it is extremely natural for people to prefer or seek out the familiar, notably someone who shares social, cultural, and aesthetic aspects with them, emphasizing, even from a biological perspective, that coexistence with what is different causes insecurity and discomfort to people, although aversion to the stranger is expressly denied by many.
In this sense, proposing the implementation of public policies as a solution is shallow and, in a way, naive. It is necessary to create infrastructures that promote the enforcement of existing public policies, in addition to improving them with each new challenge. In view of this, fighting aporophobia is everyone's responsibility, since state discrimination stems from social discrimination; thus, it will only be possible to guarantee the right to the city for people experiencing homelessness if they are understood as belonging to this city and society.
This sense of belonging can only emerge if citizens resolve to set aside their stigmas against the homeless population, because “human beings are biologically prepared for both selfishness and cooperation” (Cortina apud Resende; Machado, 2021, p. 10). In this way, it is possible to shed prejudices acquired throughout life in order to recognize that the city must belong to all of society, and not just to a segment that possesses financial resources.
Confronting this is neither easy nor achieved overnight, as discarding lifelong concepts is difficult and requires effort, but above all, it requires empathy to acknowledge that there are people who lack the basics to live with dignity, given that “the lack of a home presupposes a relational, labor, cultural, and economic rupture with society” (Cortina apud Cezar; Hirata, 2023, p. 5). Thus, it can be inferred that fraternity—a principle derived from the French Revolution, from which certain legal duties among citizens are derived, such as a duty of solidarity—is the solution or the starting point for combating aporophobia and, consequently, pursuing the guarantee of the right to the city for all. As Resende and Machado (2021, p. 19) note:
Fraternity has the capacity to transform the reality of the poor, even serving as an instrument to combat marginalization, protect the destitute, and promote the dignity of the impoverished and resourceless, since it imposes upon the State and citizens duties of tolerance, harmony, cooperation, and respect for the other—all without distinction, and even more so toward the economically disadvantaged, who are deserving of equal consideration and respect.
Therefore, ensuring compliance with, encouragement of, and adaptation of public policies involving assistance and aid to people experiencing homelessness occurs when society begins to see these individuals as equals, so as to alleviate and uproot aporophobia—which can only be achieved through education and the application of fraternity as one of society's foundational principles. In this context, this study, which sought through the conceptualization of aporophobia to address how it manifests in society, could not conclude without presenting some way to realize public policies to confront the issue raised, linked to what was previously stated regarding fraternity and the educational fight against aporophobia.
In research on the topic, a publication within the project Habitação para a população em Situação de Rua – Um direito humano, by the Apoio aos Diálogos Setoriais União Europeia-Brasil, was identified regarding Housing First. This term refers to an inverted application of what would be the “staircase” intervention adopted by Brazil and other countries to try to help people experiencing homelessness. The “staircase” intervention model exhibits an attrition rate when it begins to require certain types of commitment from individuals in the program. Thus, the model is thwarted most of the time, given that it demands skill development and requires responsibility from people experiencing homelessness so that they can obtain housing when they reach the top step of the staircase; however, they go through these stages without any specialized monitoring.
From this perspective, the Housing First model emerges, based on eight principles that reflect values to be imparted to people experiencing homelessness so that they feel a sense of belonging and agency over their decisions. In this way, the principles are based on the premise that housing is a human right, that users have control and autonomous choices, and they guide States toward active engagement without coercion, with orientation toward treatment, separation between housing and treatment, person-centered planning, and flexible support when necessary to enable harm reduction, thereby allowing the model to function. Recent research involving the model's implementation in the United States and Canada has shown that Housing First is effective, demonstrating a housing retention rate of 85 to 95% of individuals (Ministério da Mulher, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos, 2022, p. 24).
However, the model is still new and requires ongoing research to assess its efficacy and impacts in countries that have already begun implementing it, thereby improving its weaker points. In this regard, encouraging studies and research in the field of public policy for an analysis of the efficacy and efficiency of implementing “Housing First” seems worthwhile, given the need for multisectoral assessment to ensure proper implementation.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Throughout this study, it was possible to discuss and demonstrate how aporophobia, understood as a sociological phenomenon of aversion toward the socioeconomically vulnerable, directly impacts their right to the city through societal movements aimed at pushing them away—as if they “did not hold rights”—such as the use of hostile architecture or the implementation of projects that seek to “help” these individuals. In this sense, by addressing the social inequality experienced in Brazil, it is evident that, despite being a signatory to agreements to overcome it, such as SDG 1, the country faces serious social problems that reinforce aversion toward the poor, introduced in this work through the concept of the Spanish philosopher Adela Cortina, as aporophobia.
Subsequently, the right to the city was addressed as a constitutionally guaranteed right of Brazilian citizens. Consequently, there is a need to implement democratic management in cities to strengthen them, enabling the promotion of policies that secure the rights of these individuals, who are also members of urban communities. Conversely, it was necessary to examine in depth how municipalities treat socioeconomically vulnerable people through hygienist policies that seek to “cleanse” cities of those deemed undesirable.
Considering these policies adopted by various municipalities, questions were raised regarding the implementation of the Política Nacional para a População em Situação de Rua, and what paths should be taken to combat aporophobia and provide means to efficiently guarantee decent housing for people experiencing homelessness, highlighting the need to foster studies to better examine this method and understand how it could best be applied in Brazil.
Therefore, it is concluded that the right to the city is a constitutional right that must be guaranteed to all Brazilians, regardless of their socioeconomic status. People experiencing homelessness are extremely vulnerable, as they lack even a home; thus, federative entities must include them in society and guarantee their right to the city. However, to achieve this, combating aporophobia marks the beginning of the social evolution needed to fulfill this right.