The trajectory of social housing policy in Brazil: From the National Housing Bank to the Ministry of the Cities

This paper discusses social housing policy in Brazil since the 1990s by analyzing government programs’ institutional arrangements, their sources of revenues and the formatting of related financial systems. The conclusion suggests that all these arrangements have not constituted a comprehensive housing policy with the clear aim of serving to enhance housing conditions in the country. Housing ‘policies’ since the 1990s – as proposed by Fernando Collor de Mello, Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and ´ Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s governments (in the latter case, despite much progress towards subsidized investment programs) – have sought to consolidate financial instruments in line with global markets, restructuring the way private interests operate within the system, a necessary however incomplete course of action. Different from rhetoric, this has resulted in failure as the more fundamental social results for the poor have not yet been achieved.

Implementação da política de assistência social em Mossoró/RN : uma avaliação a partir dos centros de referência da assistência social

The current National Policy for Social Assistance (PNAS) is the instrument that regulates the organization and procedures of social-welfare actions. Developed and approved in 2004 since the Unified Social Assistance System (ITS) was crated in 2003, it reaffirms the democratic principles of the Social Assistance Organic Law (LOAS) focusing on the universalization of social rights and equality of rights when accessing the social-welfare system. In the SUAS point of view, the PNAS highlights the information, monitoring and evaluation fields for being the best way to assure the regulation, organization and control by the Federal Government paying attention to the principles of decentralization and participation. This political-institutional rearrangement occurs through the pact among all the three federal entities. The pact deals with the implementation of the task. It says that it has to be shared between the federal autonomous entities, established by dividing responsibilities. To the cities, considered as the smallest territorial unit of the federation and closer to the population, was given the primary responsibility, which is to feed and maintain the database of SUAS NETWORK and identify families living in situations of social vulnerability. In addition to these responsibilities, the cities that have full autonomy in the management of their actions, have the responsibility to organize the basic social protection and the special social protection, that using the Center of Social Assistance Reference (CRAS) and the Center of Specialized Social Assistance Reference (CREAS), are responsible for the provision of programs, projects and services that strengthen the family and community; that promote people who are able to enjoy the benefits of the Continuing benefit of Provisions (BPC) and transfer of incomes; that hold the infringed rights on its territory; that maximize the protective role of families and strengthen its users organization. In Mossoró/RN, city classified as autonomous in the social assistance management, has five units of CRAS that, for being public utilities, are considered the main units of basic social protection, since they are responsible for the connection between the other institutions that compose the network of local social protection. Also known as Family House, the CRAS, among other programs and services, offers the Integral Attention to Families Program (PAIF), Juvenile ProJovem Program, socio-educational coexistence services programs, as well as sending people to other public policies and social-welfare services network, provides information, among others. In this large field, social workers are highlighted as keys to implement the policy of social assistance within the city, followed by psychologists and educators. They should be effective public employees, as a solution to ensure that the provision of the services are to be continued, provided to the population living around the units. However, what we can find here is inattention to the standard rules of social assistance, which not only undermines the quality of programs and services, but also the consolidation of policy on welfare as public policy of social rights

Desenvolvimento e assistência social : uma avaliação da efetividade da política de assistência social nos municípios de Assú e Mossoró (2004 -2008)

This thesis, whose title is DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE: AN EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION IN SOCIAL ASSISTENCE POLICY IN THE CITIES OF ASSÚ AND MOSSORÓ/RN (2004/2008), has as main aim to evaluate effectiveness in Social Assistance Policy in the cities of Assu and Mossoró/RN, from 2004 to 2008, identifying its impacts and effects in life of its users. The methodological process for the research was composed by: a) Literature review on this theme, development of public policies; social public policies, public policy evaluation and Social Assistance Policy in Brazil; b) Documental research from Municipal Management of Social Development and Municipal Counsels of Social Assistance in the cities of Assu and Mossoró/RN about the object of this study and empirical field; c) Field Research constituted by the realization of Focal Groups with Social Assistance users and semistructured interviews with municipal managers from Assú and Mossoró. It was also taken into account participant observations in events and activities related to Social Assistance previously mentioned, considering field management and also the response to users demands. Articulating the themes of Development and Public Social Policy in Social Assistance was the theoretical purpose for this thesis. To achieve this purpose, it was performed two theoretical displacements related, at the same time, to the notion of development and to the concept of Social Assistance, which means to comprehend development as social change and improvement in users life quality, expressed in the expansion of their capacities and liberties (SEN, 1993, 2000), and the Social Assistance as an element for development. Such displacements provide a view of Public policy and Social Policies and evaluate National Policy of Social Assistance achieved in those cities. As product, this thesis presents a methodological purpose for effectiveness evaluation in Public Policy, taking into account expansion of capacities and liberties, concluding that Social Assistance Policy in Assú and Mossoró/RN, even in lesser extent had its impact and caused effective results in the life of their users and provided an expansion of their capacities and liberties, improving life quality and empowered agent condition for those subjects. The results show that this Policy has been proved to be effective, and consequently, it was considered, in this thesis, to be also an element and an allied for development

Política de assistência social no Brasil: uma análise a partir das tipologias de políticas públicas

The study of public policy typologies is still a knowledge field which lacks more embracing and applicable studies to different sectors. On that perspective, this work, Social Assistance Policy in Brazil: an analysis from the typologies on public policy, pursues to add the relevant literature to social assistance what focus on the public policy ratings. Moreover, it concerns about a study on the the national policy of social assistance implemented by the Brazilian government from the theoretical referrence of the public policy typologies. For that reason, the referential framework of the public policies as well as the analisys of its fundamentals/principles that are indispensable for achieving a bigger goal, that is to tipify the social assistance policy based on the different public policy typologies and characterize it through the main elements which are intrinsec to the social political and economic reality of Brazil. Thus, the issue suggested for the work is: what is the profile and the political trajectory of the social assistance implemented by the Brazilian Government? How it presents, above all, the features of a distributive, focused and lawful policy, the work has been done througho the following hypothesis: the social assistance policy in Brazil has been of universal, assistance, and focusing aspects. For each of those features granted to the social assistance policy, there is a gathering of changes according to the social, political and economic moment of the country and that stands out due to the different institutions within every cyclical period. The work showed that besides the social policy has gone through meaningful changes during the last decades, even though the adoption of the Organic Law of Social Assistance and its rules, some of the mentioned characteristics still remain, as long as the State s primacy goes on being the economic policies over the dubbed social policies. Notwithstanding, the social assistance will build up itself from the materialization of the growing of the social rights related to the State, but also assuming an important role on the amplified reproducing process regarding the capitalist social relations

A dimensão educativa do serviço social: uma análise do processo interventivo da profissão no âmbito da política de assistência social do município do Natal/RN

Can be declared that throughout the historical trajectory of the Brazilian Social Work, the men in the Social Work profession, women in the Social Work profession in his/her professional activity, present an educational dimension that runs through various social and occupational spaces, particularly in the area of Social Assistance Policy. Based on this premise, this present Dissertation, problematize the educational dimension present on the interventional process, in Social Work on the ambit of the Social Assistance Policy in Natal / RN city Brazil in the contemporary scene. Having thus, specific objectives that orientate the research of the interventional process of Social Work in the social assistance policy, analyzing of the apprehension of Social Work professionals on the educational dimension, in their daily work professional and the verification of the relationship between the educational dimension, to the professional action of both men in the Social Work profession and women in the Social Work profession and the concretization of social rights on the ambit of the social assistance policy. In this sense, the theoretical and methodological procedures used for this research, are substantiated on a critical-dialectical perspective and a qualitative and quantitative approach, from of the application of field research, of the non-participant observation, of the semi-structure, of the review of literature bibliographic and documental. Thus, considering that both women in the social work profession and men in the social work profession are an organic intellectuals who in their daily professional work promotes an intellectual and moral reform of their users, the results of this research, synthesize and show that the educational dimension in both professional work and social assistance, which have partner-historics, whose imbrication allows, contradictorily, by a side, a reaffirmation of the dominant culture, and by other side, a direction linked to the construction of an emancipatory culture in the pursuit of the materializing of social rights and a new sociability

O financiamento da política de assistência social no contexto do SUAS: tendências e particularidades do município do Natal-RN

This dissertation analyzes the configuration of the financing of Social assistance in the municipality of Natal-RN in the context of their particular expressions of the problematizando municipal budget against neoliberal adjustment macroeconomic policy. The current trends of "disclaimer" and "desfinanciamento" of social protection by the State, in the context of contemporary capitalism, bring strong implications for Social Security, especially through the redirection of public resources to the international capital, which highlights the overlapping economic interests on social needs. Whereas the changes and innovations occurring in connection with the financing of Social assistance policy, the goal of this documentary research is to identify the characteristics and trends of funding this policy in Natal-RN, from the secondary data analysis from the City of Natal, the Ministry of Social development and hunger and Portal of transparency. In the light of the theoretical, research now presented, shows trends of investment in Social assistance in the municipality of Natal-RN, in the period 2005 to 2009, which are: the tiny role membership (08) Social assistance in the municipal budget; the dispersion and fragmentation of the resources of Social assistance in other organs and/or secretariats of municipal administration; the participation of just 47.5% in expenditure from own organ Manager; the low percentage of implementation of resources foreseen in the Annual Budget Laws; the low allocation of resources in Municipal Social Assistance Fund (FUMAS), which contradicts the national policy for Social Assistance-PNAS/2004; and the predominance of government transfers in the composition of the resources of Social assistance in the municipality. The results of this research suggest that the process of financing of Social assistance in Natal is distant from the principles and guidelines pointed by PNAS/2004. In addition to the effort to understand the complexity of the financing of Social assistance in Natal, this work seeks to contribute to a political analysis in the direction of strengthening social control and the struggle for the expansion of investment in social spending

O Entrelaçamento entre assistência social e trabalho informal: verdades e equívocos em tempos de crise do capital

The thesis presented here is of interest management to analyze the performance of the State, through the materialization of the professional courses, the process of integration of users CRAS-Pajuçara informal. Therefore, we assume that poverty and inequality reach a significant portion of the world population, in a context where the working class family is seen as an alternative to face the multiple expressions of social issues. Thus, before the changes of Productive Restructuring, marked by flexibility, outsourcing and casualization of labor relations in the world, the working class family must find ways to ensure their survival. In this direction, we discuss the advances, limitations and challenges posed to the Social Assistance Policy in contemporary, situating this context, the role of the state. Furthermore, we discussed the functionality of informality to the capitalist system, showing how capital appropriates of informal work, placing it in its logic, and thus makes the capital-labor ratio increasingly predatory, inhuman and unequal. The methodological procedures for the preparation of this study constitute a literature and documentary, beyond 10 semi-structured interviews directed to users of CRAS-Pajuçara, participants of training courses for the period 2010-2011. In light of the critical-dialectical rationality, and in a context where informal work has increasingly been co-opted as an alternative to huge unemployment in the same direction in which the welfare rises in tackling social inequality, the scope of this study, discusses and reveals the truths and misconceptions that surround this bourgeois discourse, in times of crisis of capital, the city of Natal, Brazil

Assistência social ao idoso no município de Natal na proteção social básica: identificando demandas e desafios

Over the past decades, starting mainly in the 1960s, the number of elderly has grown in the country and an aging population is considered a remarkable global phenomenon. Given the speed of this process, this growth has produced different implications for the structure of the social, economic and cultural societies and, as such, constitutes new challenges for public policy, and particularly for the Brazilian social assistance policy. Considering the significant increase aging population in Natal and the challenges of social welfare policy, this research aims to identify and analyze the demands and challenges of Social Assistance Policy in the city of Natal / RN, in particular the access of the elderly to social protection basic in the Reference Centers of Social Assistance. This research uses a critical dialectical method, and the methodological procedures that guided the study: the bibliographical research, documentary and field as well as systematic observation. Some initial questions were important to guide this work: What are the demands that come to CRAS the elderly population? What are the answers to these demands by the Basic Social Protection? How this CRAS has implemented social protection responses to these demands as rights guarantee the elderly population? The services offered by CRAS meets user needs? To get the results of this research, bibliographic sources were used, documentary and observation for four (4) CRAS of different district areas of the city of Natal. The results of this research show that basic social protection is quite fragile, leaving part of the population at risk and social vulnerability still without attention due to several factors, including the reduced technical team and the impossibility of service to all neighborhoods referenced by CRAS in the respective zones, and 50% of elderly assisted arising from spontaneous demands.

Assistência social ao idoso no município de Natal na proteção social básica: identificando demandas e desafios

Over the past decades, starting mainly in the 1960s, the number of elderly has grown in the country and an aging population is considered a remarkable global phenomenon. Given the speed of this process, this growth has produced different implications for the structure of the social, economic and cultural societies and, as such, constitutes new challenges for public policy, and particularly for the Brazilian social assistance policy. Considering the significant increase aging population in Natal and the challenges of social welfare policy, this research aims to identify and analyze the demands and challenges of Social Assistance Policy in the city of Natal / RN, in particular the access of the elderly to social protection basic in the Reference Centers of Social Assistance. This research uses a critical dialectical method, and the methodological procedures that guided the study: the bibliographical research, documentary and field as well as systematic observation. Some initial questions were important to guide this work: What are the demands that come to CRAS the elderly population? What are the answers to these demands by the Basic Social Protection? How this CRAS has implemented social protection responses to these demands as rights guarantee the elderly population? The services offered by CRAS meets user needs? To get the results of this research, bibliographic sources were used, documentary and observation for four (4) CRAS of different district areas of the city of Natal. The results of this research show that basic social protection is quite fragile, leaving part of the population at risk and social vulnerability still without attention due to several factors, including the reduced technical team and the impossibility of service to all neighborhoods referenced by CRAS in the respective zones, and 50% of elderly assisted arising from spontaneous demands.

The trajectory of social housing policy in Brazil: From the National Housing Bank to the Ministry of the Cities

This paper discusses social housing policy in Brazil since the 1990s by analyzing government programs’ institutional arrangements, their sources of revenues and the formatting of related financial systems. The conclusion suggests that all these arrangements have not constituted a comprehensive housing policy with the clear aim of serving to enhance housing conditions in the country. Housing ‘policies’ since the 1990s – as proposed by Fernando Collor de Mello, Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and ´ Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s governments (in the latter case, despite much progress towards subsidized investment programs) – have sought to consolidate financial instruments in line with global markets, restructuring the way private interests operate within the system, a necessary however incomplete course of action. Different from rhetoric, this has resulted in failure as the more fundamental social results for the poor have not yet been achieved.

As políticas sociais na formação graduada do psicólogo no Piauí: análise curricular dos cursos

This research aimed to investigate the place of social policies in Psychology undergraduate programs from Piauí/Brazil. A documental study was done by analysing the Projeto Pedagógico de Curso (PPC) from five universities. Also, interviews were conducted, for each program, with a coordinator and a professor who teaches subjects related to social policies. The main results indicates that the Psychology undergraduate programs in Piauí are recent, created between the late 1990s and early 2000s, when professionals in this area were in demand. The social policies appear in PPC related to student profile; curricula emphasis, subjects and internships; albeit in a peripheral condition. Furthermore, disconnection between proposed profile and the curriculum; fragmentation and insufficient content about social policies; and predominance of clinical area were perceived in these institutions. It is noteworthy that health policies stand out in PPC while social assistance policy or other social policies were poorly mentioned. Therefore, the place of social policies must be reviewed in Psychology undergraduate programs from Piauí in order to include other social policies and improve the subjects articulation, assuming a central, critical and policy perspective

Música em projetos socioassistenciais governamentais: práticas e concepções culturais no Serviço de Convivência e Fortalecimento de Vínculos em Natal/RN

This present research focus at the teaching of music in social programs, it discuss about the teaching concepts that permeates the educational-musical practice presents in Serviço de Convivência e Fortalecimento de Vínculos (SCFV), of Complexo Dom Bosco, in Natal-RN. The Objective is to reflect upon the music teaching concepts and the relations between musical knowledge and culture. For this, it was problematized the concepts of music teaching and learning in governmental social projects through theoretical and empirical research. After this step, it was studied the cultural aspects involving the routine in the institutions the influenced the music learning at Serviço de Convivência e Fortalecimento de Vínculos, furthermore, and how these aspects are present in the constitution of the paradigms that involve music teaching. For this, it was used a qualitative approach and a case study as type of research. As data capture tool it was used the ethnographic write, photography, interviews as a Facilitator of music with the students of the program, and video recordings of musical learning situations. Theoretical support it was used authors who study the complexity, culture and music teaching in social projects. Finally, the conclusion is that musical learning, in the SCFV context, is involved of cultural conceptions steeped to the Oratório Dom Bosco space and the same time the Brazilian Social Assistance Policy. Sometimes these concepts are contradictory: discipline, leadership and combat social exclusion refer to dialogical cultural hologram of the institutions involved in the music education process.

O Psicólogo no campo do Bem-Estar: cartografias de práticas na saúde e assistência social

The study focuses on the psychology and Social Well-being Policy encounters. The objective is to understand how the psychologists in the health services of Natal, RN, specifically in the Basic Health Units and social assistance, experience their daily practices. The methodology included observation and interviews of 13 psychologists regarding their daily activities and forms of practice in these services. We utilized an interview protocol directed at the affective memory and the professional life history of these technicians. Field notes were used to produce a cartography of the encounter intensities experienced by the researcher in the investigated context. The data analysis enabled the construction of the following analytic axes: 1) Work processes and proximity/ distancing points between these fields; 2) Forms of government and life management in the well-being context; 3) Experiments of self in the daily services. The first axis showed the precariousness of working conditions (remuneration issues, lack of structure, of training and autonomy for the activities). In the second axis the identified care forms produced in these fields indicated an adherence to the production of ideal subjects characterized as autonomous, productive, healthy and aware of own rights . These were considered normative insofar as they express attempts to break with the established patterns. In the third axis, many technicians experienced constraint with the daily activities because they found themselves in contexts that were adverse to the habitual forms of action. This situation provoked two distinct forms of positioning: a) action expressed by compassion, pity and resentment; b) investment in the practices themselves, so as to overcome its limits and to respond innovatively to the difficulties and/or challenges that these contexts provoke

O psicólogo na proteção social especial: atuação junto às vítimas de violação de direitos no CREAS

The objective of this research was to investigate psychologist‟s practices at the Reference Specialized Center of Social Assistance (CREAS), special social care unit of medium complexity of the Unique System of Social Assistance (SUAS). With the creation of CREAS occurred the reorganization of specialized services and programs which were scattered within the socialassitantial network and began to be part of this center, creating a mosaic of actions directed to people with their rights violated. At the same time, there was a significant arrival of psychologists to the field of Social Assistance and their questioning facing specialized social demands and the (un)definitions of SUAS‟ policy concerning to special social protection. Was aimed in this research to investigate how psychologist‟s practices are developed at CREAS using semi-structured interviews and following the practices developed by three psychologists at a CREAS in the state of Rio Grande do Norte (RN), indicated by the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS) as one of the national references in 2008. It was highlighted a complex work field, which is delineated between the user´s rights perspective and the maintenance of historical difficulties concerning to the Social Assistance. In which the professional is requested to act toward the fight against rights violation, but does not find a field where is possible inter-sector and articulated work, in addition of being exposed to the precariousness of work and the weakness of employment ties, associated to the lack of formation to work in the area. Accordingly, there is still a range of challenges to psychologists in the building of a profession which confront risk situations and break off rights violation.

Violência contra a mulher:uma análise do trabalho do Centro de Referência da Assistência Social-CREAS/Parnamirim-RN.

This work demonstrates the results obtained from research on violence against women: an analysis of the work from reference center of the Social Assistance-CREAS, held in the city of Parnamirim/RN from September 2008 extending through the february of 2009. Having as goal to investigate and examine in a longitudinal cut, which specifically covers the period from 2006 to 2007, find out extent the actions taken by the Reference Center Specialized Social Assistance- CREAS, contributed to the change of women who were there, by checking if there was any change in their positions ahead of the violence and if they began to realize how social subjects, able to control their living conditions and interfere in the orientation of social dynamics Have a particular emphasis on the presence of work and schooling or lack of them is also a factor to be allied to the barriers and rules imposed on women in contemporary society. In this study it was found through a qualitative research guided by dialectical and implemented through the use of documentary research, observation, semi-structured interview and an extensive theoretical background on the subject in question that the woman victim of violence is in a complex and contradictory context where there is both the construction and deconstruction of rights, a view that there are strong influences of patriarchal culture and the consequences of social issues that specifically searched for the public, focuses on social, economic , political, social and cultural. In this sense, the National Policy to Combat Violence against Women, operated by CREASE Parnamirim, is also reflected in its early stages in the life of these women are to nurture a real chance for these victims of violence, to perceive themselves as social subjects can control their lives and interfere in their own destinies. We want this study to add more knowledge to help and most appropriate intervention in this reality, but without the intention of reaching exhaustion, but to subsidize future studies on the topic of women victims of violence