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Call expands access to social rent in Belo Horizonte and integrates a municipal strategy that combines housing, social assistance, health, work, and technical support to help homeless people rebuild autonomy away from sidewalks, shelters, and improvised occupations.
In March 2026, the City Hall of Belo Horizonte began calling 300 homeless people to join the Housing Grant Program, a benefit aimed at covering rent costs and supporting the transition from the streets with technical support from the municipal network.
The initiative is part of the Live Again project, announced by the municipal administration in December 2025, and brings together actions in housing, social assistance, health, work, and autonomy reconstruction for people in vulnerable situations.
According to the City Hall, 50 people had already started the process of entering the program that month, with the submission of documentation and authorization to look for properties that can be rented with the benefit’s support.
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With this measure, access to a home becomes a concrete step in life reorganization, without limiting public service to emergency shelter in collective units.
How the Housing Grant works in Belo Horizonte
Operated by the Urbanization and Housing Company of Belo Horizonte, Urbel, the Housing Grant functions as an aid for paying rent for individuals and families selected according to the criteria defined by the municipality.
In serving the homeless population, selection and monitoring involve the Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance and Human Rights, responsible for conducting the qualification of those indicated by the public network.
To access the benefit, one must have lived in Belo Horizonte for at least two years, be registered in the Single Registry as a homeless person, and be accompanied by municipal services aimed at this public.
In addition to these requirements, technical teams assess the minimum capacity to manage the benefit and housing, a condition considered necessary for the person to maintain a routine in a rented property.
Priority criteria in the call
The call does not follow a random order, as the names were ranked by the City Hall according to vulnerability criteria, prioritizing situations considered more sensitive by municipal services that support the homeless population.
This survey gathers information from teams that already assist individuals and families in the capital of Minas Gerais, allowing the identification of trajectories marked by greater exposure to social risks and rights violations.
Among the prioritized groups are elderly people, women, people with disabilities, families with children and adolescents, as well as Black, mixed-race, and Indigenous people, according to the criteria released by the municipal administration.
Families exposed to child labor, sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, domestic violence, threat, and territorial conflict, situations that increase the urgency of housing assistance, also received higher scores.
Housing as a Starting Point
By adopting a housing-centered logic, the policy aligns with models that treat a fixed address as the starting point for access to other public policies, rather than as the final result of a long journey.
Having a private space, minimal protection for belongings, and address stability can facilitate the search for documents, health care, income, family ties, and job opportunities.
Within the Viver de Novo, housing is integrated with other service fronts, in a strategy that combines qualified reception, humanized care, access to decent housing, professional qualification, and productive inclusion.
Living on the streets often involves accumulated obstacles, such as lack of documents, low income, broken family ties, health problems, absence of formal work, and daily exposure to violence.
For this reason, entry into the Bolsa Moradia is presented as part of a process accompanied by technical teams, and not just as the transfer of a value for rent payment.
Municipal Network Made the Referrals
The referrals for the vacancies came from institutional shelter units, Reference Centers for the Homeless Population, Specialized Social Assistance Reference Centers, and Specialized Social Approach Service.
Teams from the Street Clinic, LGBT Reference Center, LGBT House, and Reference Center for Screening Autonomous Recyclers also participated, services that support different vulnerability profiles in Belo Horizonte.
In this stage, people already assisted by the municipal network were indicated because access to the benefit depends on a technical evaluation of the established criteria and prior monitoring of each case.
With this design, the City Hall seeks to avoid a generic selection and concentrate the first calls on situations where public services already know the trajectory and needs of the candidates.
Alternative between shelter and permanent housing
The policy does not replace shelters, reference centers, and social outreach actions, but creates an alternative for people who are able to manage a home with professional support.
In practice, the program operates in an intermediate range between staying on the streets, institutional shelter, and definitive housing solutions, expanding the available care options in the capital of Minas Gerais.
Families with children and adolescents are among the prioritized groups, which reinforces the social relevance of the measure in cases with greater daily exposure to risks.
For these family units, accessing a rented property can reduce vulnerabilities associated with the street and allow for a routine closer to a conventional home, with a fixed address and greater protection.
Citizen Housing and expansion of care
The initiative connects to the Citizen Housing project, presented by the City Hall as an experience based on the Housing First methodology, which places housing as the basis for life reorganization and access to public services.
The project plans to serve 100 individuals and families in different arrangements, with priority for groups of greater vulnerability, such as families with children, adolescents and pregnant women, people in the aging process and those released from the prison system.
In addition to access to housing, Citizen Housing includes specialized monitoring by an interdisciplinary team, support for furniture, and assistance with expenses such as water and electricity.
The proposal is to create conditions so that moving into a property represents more than a change of address, functioning as a stage accompanied by social reorganization.
According to the City Hall, the Housing Allowance will have 300 new slots per year and could reach the end of 2027 with about 1,500 beneficiaries, within the planned expansion of the Viver de Novo actions.
The selection process should continue to prioritize people with greater vulnerability and a minimum capacity to manage the benefit, according to the technical assessment of the municipal network.
In Belo Horizonte, the expansion of social rent for the homeless population reinforces a debate present in large Brazilian cities on how to address the permanence of people on sidewalks, squares, and underpasses without limiting the public response to emergency measures.
In the capital of Minas Gerais, the strategy combines housing benefit, technical selection, and continuous monitoring to organize a more structured exit from the street situation.
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