‘She died after 10 hours in line for benefit’: social assistance has the lowest budget in a decade

Struggling with depression for four years that prevented her from working, and still suffering from hypertension, obesity, panic syndrome and anxiety, Janaína Araújo, 44, tried for eight days to be seen at Cras (Reference Center for Social Assistance) to have access to the BPC (Continued Payment Benefit).

Unable to schedule a phone call, he joined dozens of people in line at Cras Paranoá, in Brasília, around 5:30 pm on a Tuesday (August 16).

But she would never make it through the gates of the welfare center that open at 8 am.

Around 4 am on Wednesday, Janaína began to feel sick, with signs of a heart attack. She was taken to the hospital, but did not survive.

“I still have that feeling that this is all a nightmare, that tomorrow I’ll wake up and she’ll be here sleeping and we’ll have breakfast. I still haven’t been able to assimilate everything and know that she’s not here with me anymore. Iomar Fernandes Torres, 61 years old and Janaína’s partner for ten years.

“She was a life partner, it was me for her and she for me and we did everything together. We were companions, accomplices, confidants, friends”, says the self-employed worker.

“My cry is not of a political nature because, for me, one goes in and another goes out, and everything remains the same. But I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that other Janaínas don’t need to die anymore to change the assistance system To wake up and see that there is inhumane, humiliating”, completes Iomar.

Social assistance loses space in the federal budget

The tragic death of Janaína Araújo is an example of how the fragility of Brazilian social assistance services has affected the lives of people in vulnerable situations.

For specialists and municipal managers heard by BBC News Brasil, the queues at the doors of Cras across the country are a direct result of the loss of space for social assistance services in the federal budget, in addition to changes in the management of social programs made unilaterally by the government. According to them, the fall in resources reveals the lack of priority of social assistance.

Wanted to comment on the reduction of the budget for social assistance, the Ministry of Citizenship did not respond to questions from BBC News Brasil.

Social assistance services are the network of public facilities that provide access to benefits such as Auxílio Brasil, BPC (minimum wage paid to the elderly and low-income people with disabilities) and referral to shelters for children and women victims of domestic violence, for example.

Despite the recent increase in resources for Auxílio Brasil, this network of continuous services, which require permanent funding, has lost space in the federal budget.

The management model of Suas (Single Social Assistance System) provides for the co-financing of the social assistance system between the Union, Federal District, states and municipalities. But the Union’s share of this co-financing has been falling since 2014 and in 2023 it should reach the lowest level in more than a decade.

According to a survey by PUC-PR (Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná), the federal budget for co-financing assistance services —which includes the maintenance of Cras, Creas (Specialized Reference Center for Social Assistance) and shelters, for example— has decreased by about from R$3 billion in 2014, the year with the highest budget in the recent period, to values ​​close to R$1 billion in 2021 and 2022, according to the Annual Budget Law (LOA).

A study by IPEA (Institute of Applied Economic Research), an agency linked to the Ministry of Economy, shows the same trend.

“This volume of resources draws attention because it represents the smallest amount proposed by the federal government in the last ten years. This signals the lack of priority given to this policy, even more so in the context of a crisis with lasting impacts on the economy and the society and that will require a long recovery process”, wrote Ipea technicians, commenting on the budget for social assistance in 2021.

In 2023, the Annual Budget Law Project (PLOA) currently under discussion in Congress allocates an even smaller amount to these services: R$ 48.3 million, the lowest amount in more than a decade.

This amount includes resources intended for Basic Social Protection (which maintain the Cras), Specialized Social Protection (which maintain all specialized services) and Structuring the Service Network (which includes expenses with referral to services provided by entities).

Tax tightening and spending cap

A first reason that explains why the network of social assistance services is losing space in the federal budget, while benefits such as Auxílio Brasil and BPC have their resources maintained or even increased, is that income transfer programs are mandatory expenditures, while Expenditures on social assistance services are discretionary expenditures — expenditures that the government may or may not execute, according to the revenue forecast.

This is what Jucimeri Isolda Silveira explains, professor at the Graduate Program in Human Rights and Public Policies at PUC-PR and responsible for the study Social Protection, Deprotection and Financing of Suas.

“Since Constitutional Amendment 95 [que estabeleceu o teto de gastos, limitando o crescimento da despesa do governo à variação da inflação no ano anterior], resources for social assistance have been reduced. So it is this network, which works at the end, which registers families, which aims at the integrated monitoring of this population that accesses the benefits, which is being compromised”, says Silveira.

She gives another practical example of this loss of resources: the Child Labor Eradication Program (Peti) has not received federal resources for confrontation actions since 2019.

With the reduction of federal transfers, services provided by municipalities such as assistance to the homeless population, immigrants and women victims of violence are also impaired.

“The person who provides this service at the end is social assistance, it is it, for example, that guarantees the full protection of children in institutional care, who are more than 30 thousand today in Brazil”, exemplifies the professor and researcher at PUC- PR

For Manoel Pires, coordinator of the Fiscal Policy Observatory at Ibre-FGV (Brazilian Institute of Economics of the Getulio Vargas Foundation), the spending ceiling worsened the situation of loss of revenue for assistance, but the budget constraint is earlier.

“There has been a compression of discretionary spending since 2014, 2015, which is when the fiscal adjustment begins. The spending cap comes in the middle of this story. It starts in 2017 and institutionalizes the reduction of this type of expense”, says Pires.

Parliamentary amendments are not a solution, say managers

In recent years, the government has sought to compensate for the reduction in the budget for social assistance through the allocation of resources via parliamentary amendments or extraordinary credits, such as emergency resources to combat Covid-19.

But Elias de Sousa Oliveira, president of Congemas (National Collegiate of Municipal Social Assistance Managers), explains that this does not solve the problem, since assistance structures are permanent, while these resources are of an occasional nature.

“The services of Cras, Creas, care for adults and children, shelters for women victims of violence are ongoing services. How do I schedule a service that is permanent using a parliamentary amendment that is sporadic? “, asks Oliveira.

The representative of Congemas explains that, in order to maintain service to the population at a time of increased demand for the most vulnerable, municipalities began to compensate with their own cash for the lack of federal resources.

“Some smaller municipalities, with greater difficulty, ended up reducing service and even closing services. Other municipalities end up covering what the federal government does not mandate, but this implies a loss of the ability to increase and expand service at a time, post-pandemic, of increased demand”, says Oliveira.

The representative cites the example of Foz do Iguaçu, the city where he is Secretary of Social Assistance. Until March 2020, the city of Paraná had 29,000 families in the Cadastro Único (a registry of low-income Brazilian families that allow access to benefits such as Auxílio Brasil), 7,000 of them in extreme poverty.

Now, according to Oliveira, there are 47,000 families in the Single Registry and 18,000 families in extreme poverty.

“This has increased the demand for Cras, Creas, for reception, for assistance to the homeless population and, in addition to not having expansion of service goals and co-financing, we still have cuts in resources, in a context of very bigger”, says the manager.

According to him, municipalities currently account for 90% of everything invested in social assistance, a situation that could be complicated by the loss of ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services) on fuel, determined by the federal government as a way of to reduce inflation on the eve of the October elections.

The National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM) estimates the loss of revenue for municipalities with the measure at R$ 22 billion, with effects also on spending on education and health.

Oliveira says, however, that it is not just the lack of resources that explains the queues at the doors of the Cras, such as the one faced by Janaína in Brasília, on the day that Iomar’s companion died after ten hours of waiting and eight days of failed attempts. of getting a benefit.

According to the manager, with the change from Bolsa Família to Auxílio Brasil, the process of updating the Cadastro Único has changed. Previously, municipalities had a period of 60 days to investigate families, carry out an active search and inform the federal government about cases in which the family could not be found to update the registration, a situation that resulted in the benefit being blocked until someone of the family to attend the reference Cras.

“Today, the government blocks everyone [com cadastro desatualizado] and many people only find out that they are blocked when going to the bank to withdraw Auxílio Brasil. Can you imagine in a month, 3 families are blocked in Foz de Iguaçu — as has already happened. These 3,000 families immediately go to the Cras. This will generate a queue”, exemplifies Oliveira.

Added to this is the difficulty of increasing the number of service employees, due to the restriction of resources, in this context of increased demand, further boosted by the Auxílio Brasil extended to R$ 600 until December and by the increase in the gas allowance.

“Previously, when the federal government made changes, it dialogued with the municipalities. It had a whole plan. Today, states and municipalities often find out about changes through the newspapers”, criticizes the manager.

After Janaína’s death at Cras Paranoá, in Brasília, the government of the Federal District announced a partnership with the Military Fire Brigade of the DF to expand social services and relieve the wait for care at Cras in the country’s capital.

The Department of Social Development of the Federal District (Sedes) did not respond to a request for a position on the subject made by BBC News Brasil.

Iomar hopes that his partner’s death will serve as a wake-up call for the Brazilian social assistance system to change.

“Social assistance in our country, I’m sorry, but it’s decadent, it’s shameful. Not for assistance professionals, but for the system and its rulers. It’s an incentive to queue, neglect, inhumanity”, says Iomar.

“A drastic change is needed. I want my cry to be heard: don’t let Janaínas die any more in search of help to have a little dignity. It’s just what I hope: that her death was not in vain. I really hope there are changes.”

This text was originally published here.