Life on wheels for “nomads” hit by the crisis in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A couple of vans, a school bus, and a mobile home occupy a street near one of São Paulo’s busiest subway stops. Inside live Brazilian “nomads,” people who lost everything in the 2015 crisis and were forced to turn their vehicles into homes.

Unlike what was portrayed in “Nomadland”, a film by Chloé Zhao, the great winner of the Oscars, those who live on wheels in Brazil do not move between cities, but through neighborhoods of the same city, always in search of a safe place where they can do small jobs.

“We live here, then there, then there. We have to leave when things don’t go well. Sometimes some neighbors don’t want us around, so we leave,” Geraldo Pereira, 60, who lives in a pickup truck with his wife, explains to Efe.

When he lost his job as a bricklayer, the vehicle became his home, was abandoned by his ex-wife, and the children went to live in another state.

The year was 2015. Brazil was in the midst of an economic recession, which would extend for another year and plunge the country into an unprecedented crisis, from which it did not end up emerging and has now been aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.

“At that time, I was walking the streets pushing a cart; I worked with recycling. But it was no longer working, so I decided to buy this red kombi and live in it because I felt safer,” he recalls.

Pereira now lives from selling fruit in front of the subway. Still, the outbreak of the coronavirus – and the paralysis of non-essential activities – meant that he had to survive mainly on donations.

In his van, he stores food, household utensils, clothes, and the accessories needed for work, all carefully arranged around a makeshift bed filled with blankets. He reveals that life on wheels is a daily challenge, as the “nomads” have to deal with insecurity, neighborhood prejudices, and difficulties in cooking or showering.

The magnitude of this drama is unknown, as there is no data on people living in vehicles in Brazil.

FROM THE AUTOMOBILE TO THE MOTOR HOME

Living in a mobile home in Brazil often involves a tortuous evolutionary process that not everyone can afford: first, one lives in a car, then in a van, then in an adapted bus, and, finally, in the longed-for motorhome.

For the past six months, restaurateur Gilmar Braz has been living with his wife Nilcelia and their six children, aged 4 to 18, in a motorhome, an acquisition he describes as “a dream” come true.

“Now we have a roof over our heads, it’s warmer, the children are more protected, and I can go out to work a little more relaxed,” he says.

A native of the southern state of Paraná, the couple has been in São Paulo for decades, and, in the midst of the crisis, work was dwindling as the family grew.

“At the beginning, we could rent a house, it was just me, my wife, and a son. Over time the family grew” and “suddenly I was either paying the rent or feeding my children,” he recalls.

His family then began to sleep on the street, often without food, under such intense cold that “all the bones ached”, until he managed to buy a tent, and they went to live in a square.

“Little by little, I worked, saving until I was finally able to buy a van, then an old bus and, finally, the motorhome,” he notes.

“We already have space for each of us to sleep, the kitchen (…) But there is still no bathroom; we have to use the one in the (subway) terminal, and the children shower at a friend’s house,” she adds.

ROUTINE OF “HUMILIATIONS

Among the inhabitants of this central São Paulo street, some prefer the company of animals, like Joao Andrade Correia, who has been living in a bus with his 10 dogs for two years.

After working most of his life in the hotel and tourism sector, his situation changed drastically in 1990. The government of then-President Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992) confiscated the bank savings of a large part of the population.

From then on, his life became increasingly complicated until, in 2015, the crisis came, and Correia could no longer pay the rent, so he went on to live in a shack and, later, in a van.

Between donations and recycling, he managed to buy the bus he lives in today, but this did not deprive him of daily “humiliations”.

“I have already suffered and still suffer a lot of humiliation because this city of Sao Paulo is controversial. There is a lot of prejudice, racism, and selfishness,” he stresses.

“People stigmatize you; many throw things at dogs, provoke, insult. That’s the attitude of many, they treat you as if you were their property. They say ‘I’m going to kill that old man,’ and that’s precisely what they do, they kill you little by little,” he says.

Source: efe