Governor Witzel and Mayor Crivella to Collect Homeless in Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Rio de Janeiro state and municipal governments plan to submit street dwellers to medical evaluations in order to determine potential causes of compulsory hospitalization.

Both Mayor Marcelo Crivella and Governor Wilson Witzel have statements to that effect on Wednesday, July 31st, stating that how this will be achieved is still under assessment.

Governor Wilson Witzel advocated for the compulsory hospitalization of homeless drug addicts after two people were stabbed to death by a street dweller in Rio de Janeiro.

Witzel said that the police are already searching these individuals for perforating and cutting instruments.

The potential locations for removing the homeless from the streets, where health services will be able to assess their self-determination conditions and the potential for hospitalization, are also under evaluation. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, in turn, said that the establishment of centers with physicians and social workers to identify potential cases of compulsory hospitalization is under study.

The Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro estimates that approximately 15,000 people currently live on the streets of the Rio de Janeiro capital, while municipal shelters provide less than 3,000 places in areas with structural issues and poor service conditions.

Carla Beatriz Nunes Maia, in charge of providing assistance to street dwellers at the Center for the Defense of Human Rights of the State of Rio de Janeiro, argues that reinforcing policies to assist the homeless population and the mental health network may reduce the number of cases in which extreme measures such as compulsory hospitalization are considered.

A further measure advocated by the defender’s office is the use of vacant public buildings as emergency shelters. This list includes primarily the Leão XIII Foundation’s buildings, which could be reactivated after renovations.

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