2023-06-25 08:52:41
SAO PAULO (AP) — The decline of the downtown area of the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo has accelerated in the past year. Crack users seem to be everywhere, roaming the streets of the largest city in South America. Shopkeepers are worried regarding robberies and neighbors fear robberies. And with the city’s uncoordinated attempt to stem the decline, it’s no surprise that for the first time in years, people are leaving.
Here’s a look at some of those affected by the crisis:
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Balduino Alvares has been working in downtown Sao Paulo for regarding three decades. He now has been forced to arrive at 6:00 in the morning, an hour earlier, to clean the human waste from the sidewalk in front of his jewelry store.
It is the worst hour of the day for Alvares, 62 years old.
Alvares uses pressurized water, adds soap and sweeps vigorously for regarding 20 minutes. He stops for a second to rest his back while the disgusting mixture settles. Then return to continue cleaning energetically for another 10 minutes. Those steps are key to removing drug addicts’ feces and urine, he says, and getting rid of the stench, at least until the next morning.
“It’s been like that since last year. I hate it,” Alvares told The Associated Press. “These people were not here before. He stayed in the same place a few blocks away. Now they roam, sleep anywhere, and do these things in full view.”
The city’s so-called “Cracolandia,” which was previously limited to a few blocks around the Julio Prestes train station, has spread to surrounding neighborhoods, including the city’s most popular district for buying electronics. Neighbors attribute this growth to a city council policy in which the municipal police disperse addicts from the places where they congregate. But there doesn’t seem to be a plan to deal with the consequences, such as violent attacks on pedestrians and looting of shops and restaurants.
Although these are not unprecedented events, several such cases have made national news this year. In April, dozens of looters, some with crack pipes in hand, held up a pharmacy. This month the driver of a transport company by app saw his car being stoned while a group of addicts surrounded the vehicle.
Daniel Bonfim, 58, loved being a vendor in a prosperous area that for decades attracted customers from all over Brazil. In 2018 he sold his apartment and his car to invest in his own store. He now wonders how long he can stay.
“I can’t work anymore. Everything I got I’m losing in just one year,” Bonfim said through tears. “Often my front door is taken over by homeless people and drug addicts, day and night. I have to wait all day by the door for clients I’ve had for decades to show up. Now they don’t come, they ask me to go to them”.
Neighbors say that dozens of businesses, such as shops, restaurants and grocery stores, have closed since the beginning of the year.
Paulo Recife, a 31-year-old Italian teacher, lives in an apartment near one of the main arteries of Sao Paulo. For the first time, he hears addicts yelling in the morning and threatening those watching from their balconies.
“They have gotten crazier and crazier. One told me that he was going to shoot me with his assault weapon if he didn’t leave me. I told him, ‘come on’. I knew he had nothing, and he just started yelling at a wall,” Recife said. “It’s getting harder and harder to live here.”
Psychiatrist Flávio Falcone, who lives in downtown Sao Paulo and works with addicts, says things have gotten much worse in the neighborhood in part because a former mayor dismantled a harm reduction program that was trying to help addicts redirect their lives.
“It’s not a nice place to be,” Falcone said. “Of course, my situation is different. I have contacts in the area, people know me. But others have to be extra careful.”
Once a week, Falcone dresses up as a clown, a light-hearted way to approach addicts. He works every week with a team that performs in Cracolandia. They invite addicts to sing karaoke, compete for a $10 prize or join the five-person jury. Participants come into contact with health professionals. Some eventually cut back to levels that allow them to study or work, Falcone said.
On a recent day, as Falcone’s team was cheering on karaoke participants, a woman chewed on her mat and yelled at a wall. Many others were wandering around the area distracted, as if they had lost their way. Others joined in the fun, dancing and waving at police officers stationed nearby.
An addict who gave note to the singers was Maria Creuza. Sitting on a beach chair and dressed in a tank top that showed scars from stabbing, she gave all the applicants a 10. Creuza and other consumers, who barely sleep at night in Cracolandia, dozed between songs.
“Everyone here is great. They decide to get out of the pack and come here to do something different. We can also be nice people,” Creuza told a dozen onlookers, almost all of them addicted like her. “Nobody is happy living on the streets of Cracolandia, nobody likes to depend on it.”
Alessandra Bueno Barros sat on the side of the street and watched as hundreds of addicts just like her left. She welcomes initiatives to change the dynamics in the region, but she said the future looked bleak.
“There is no hope for anyone here, sir,” Barros said.
During the show, an addict was stabbed in the shoulder by a rival, a reflection of the challenges of helping addicts help themselves.
Eduardo is a municipal police officer who has been working in the center for two years. Speaking to the nearby police station, he said he has felt the pressure to enter an area where addicts throw whatever they can – rocks, pieces of wood, glass – if officers get too close when they confiscate their drugs. .
“The dealers are mixed in with the addicts and many times they encourage the addicts to attack us,” said Eduardo, who spoke on condition that his last name not be published for security reasons and because he was not authorized to speak to the press. “It’s a dangerous place, even for the police.”
Cracolandia is expected to be one of the key issues in next year’s mayoral campaign. The mayor, Ricardo Nunes, inherited the post on the death of his predecessor, and is running for a second term despite his low popularity in the polls.
Nunes’s office has denied several AP requests to interview him or members of the city government responsible for areas occupied by addicts.
However, his government has beefed up a program launched in 2019 called Redemption to address the problem.
The program, inspired by international experiences in cities such as Bogota or Zurich, involves forcing addicts to keep on the move constantly and having workers approach them to convince them to commit to treatment. It also calls for coordination between health services, social assistance and public security.
The Nunes government is also boosting security by installing cameras and assigning more police officers.
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