Corona Crisis in Brazil: Solidarity with the Emergency Aid of the Homeless Workers’ Movement

Corona Crisis in Brazil: Solidarity with the Emergency Aid of the Homeless Workers’ Movement

The Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto) for 22 years has been organizing workers from the peripheries of large cities in the struggle for their rights, especially the right to decent housing. During this period, more than 55 thousand families have already gone through the movement's occupations. They are people who could no longer bear the high burden of rent or lived in risk areas, who were evicted or lived on favor in borrowed homes and deposited their hopes in MTST.

We are passing through a critical moment. The serious global crisis triggered by the coronavirus (COVID-19) affects us at a time of weakened labor relations and decrease of public services. Projections indicate that 40% of the Brazilian population will be infected. It will be predominantly those who no longer have their basic rights guaranteed, since basic sanitation and housing are conditions of the possibility of social isolation. In other words: it will be the MTST families. Unfortunately, the Brazilian government goes against the international measures broadly announced and has not yet shown proposals that can reduce contagion and protect the base stratum of our population.

Our situation is unprecedented and of emergency, and it is time for individual care and for SOLIDARITY! Since a great majority of our governors treats the situation with total irresponsibility and lack of attention, we reply in an agile and effective way to enable forms of collaboration. This is why we are urgently making this international call for support! Help MTST to carry out this emergency aid by raising funds that will be used to buy food, medical supplies, hand sanitizer etc. for thousands of homeless people all over Brazil.

This is the first stage of the campaign that will last the entire time the crisis triggered by coronavirus continues. We are counting on the support of all of you who can assist us.