Homeless in Rio




Rio de Janeiro’s Guardia Municipal snap on yellow rubber gloves and take to the streets weekly in a small caravan of cars, VW vans, a city bus, and dump trucks. After dark on a couple of nights each week, the police and a few city officials set out to round up as many of Rio’s homeless people as can be squeezed into a city bus. Once the bus — with seats for 45, and a “capacity” of 90 — is full, the mendigos are taken to an enormous rural shelter where they are bathed, fed, and given a place to sleep out of sight of tourists and the rest of the population. City crews load dump trucks with the meager belongings of those pulled from the streets. Once at the shelter, though, the new residents can receive skills training and substance abuse assistance.



All images ©Kevin Moloney 1995-1996



Officers of Rio’s Guardia Municipal drag an unwilling homeless man away from the subway station where he was sleeping. Though they are asked to voluntarily come to the shelter, those who refuse are forced.






Caught in the act while the Guardia were looking for homeless people, a car thief is detained near the object of his quest. He was trying to break-in through a vent window.






A Guardia officer checks the identification of a suspicious passer-by in front of the operation’s bus. He was allowed to go on his way after extensive look at his papers.






On the bus for the duration of the operation, Marcelo Luis, 19, and wife Maria Fátima De Paula, 35, share cigarettes and kisses among five children they cared for on the street. The couple felt they lived better on the street than they would trying to pay for a house. They were excited about going to the shelter, however.






A new arrival to Rio’s Fazenda Modelo — Model Farm in Portuguese — takes a mattress into a dorm to find sleeping place among over 1,500 others at the homeless shelter.






João Lopes da Silva, 69, receives a shave at the barbershop at the Fazenda Modelo near Rio de Janeiro. Residents of the open shelter are provided with services often performed by fellow residents. Work is used as therapy to rescue self-esteem and assist in chemical addiction treatment.






Left idle when work and educational programs on the farm are scarce, residents of the Fazenda Modelo relax in the sun along a street in the over 100 acre complex, while boys shoot soccer balls at a wall nearby. Though the shelter is open for residents to leave, it is a nearly 70 kilometer trek back to the city streets.






A resident of Rio’s Fazenda Modelo waters a small agricultural field at the homeless shelter. Many who successfully leave the shelter go on to agricultural jobs in the rural area outside of Rio.






A group of residents gather in the reception hall where new arrivals amass after the bus ride from the city. A sign on the wall reminds them to respect the rules, themselves, and their neighbors.







Kevin Moloney
Photojournalist

Rio de Janeiro

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