Contribuições do serviço social à defesa do direito á moradia no Brasil: expressões e desafios particulares na cidade de São Luís (MA)

Abstract

Analysis of the relationship Social Service and the right to housing in the present time of Brazilian society, having as central objective the search of demarcations as to the contributions and challenges of this profession to the defense and concretization of this right. Following the guidance of the critical historical method, it approaches processes of urban segregation and housing precarization, through the configuration of certain angles of Brazilian urbanization and the growing trend of financialization of housing. It delimits historical subjects involved in the production, domination, disputes and ordering of urban territory, highlighting the social struggles for housing and the state management of city life. It addresses legal-legal discourses and public housing policies that favor the realization of the right to housing, without losing sight of the contradiction between the constitutional provision and the reality of denial of this right. It recaptures elements of the Social Service relationship and the right to housing, considering its historicity and concretization in the four dimensions that make up the profession - academic-professional formation, knowledge production, political organization and professional intervention - focusing differently on each one of them. Particularly, in the context of the intervention and in the context of almost always precarious relationships of salaried work, it is particularly important to explain the contradictions and challenges regarding the possibilities of Social Service contributions to the defense of the right to housing. In order to deepen the analysis, it takes the singular process of urbanization in the city of São Luís (Maranhão / Brazil), emphasizing processes of segregation, social struggles for housing, public action in the field of housing and the concrete reality of the professional intervention of social workers who participate in the implementation of public housing. Notes that, in the current historical context, there are clear indications of the retreat of the actions of the Brazilian State, assuming neoliberal precepts, in a more profound and authoritarian way, in the formulation of public housing policies, while widening inequality and housing needs. They are processes that, therefore, dramatically increase the challenges of political and professional subjects, especially the Social Service, committed to the defense of social rights, especially the right to city and housing in Brazil.