The organizations that provide service in the area of ​​Social Assistance will have to operate in 2019 with $12 billion less, if the Budget Proposal for the sector is approved. The measure involves the interruption of 17 thousand social assistance services, according to information from the National Council of Social Assistance (CNAS). The Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SSVP) in Brazil asks for revision in the values, in letters sent yesterday (5) to the President of the Republic Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia, and to Senator Waldemir Moka (speaker of the Joint Budget Committee).

The Budget Proposal establishes the values ​​that each department can spend the following year. The cut implies fewer assistances offered by CRAS, CREAS, CENTRO-POP and Institutional Welcoming Units, which act directly in situations of vulnerability or social risk, due to the occurrence of sexual abuse, abandonment, dependence situation, domestic violence, physical and/or psychic abuse, homeless situation, among other circumstances of violations of rights. “It is of the utmost importance to underline that all the indicated risks cause a lot of concern to this Civil Society Organization (the SSVP) and its Vincentian Units, in what refers to the harmful splitting that our assistants may suffer with the budget cut.”, defends brother Cristian Reis da Luz, national president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, in the letter addressed to Temer and Moka.

Brother Cristian Reis da Luz, president of SSVP in Brazil

This letter also informs that those assisted, especially the institutionalized elderly (those who live in asylums), depend on any structure offered by the Long-Term Institutions (ILPIs), which are linked to the Social Assistance System (SUAS). “As defenders of their constitutional rights and as executors of the Public Social Assistance Policies, our Vincentian Units (Obras Unidas) call for the recomposition of the Union’s budget for Social Assistance in the year 2019,” says Cristian Reis.

The document, finally, mentions the dignity of the people, expressed in article 1, clause III of the Magna Carta, as one of the foundations of the Federative Republic of Brazil, which has as its fundamental objectives: the eradication of poverty and marginalization, and the reduction of social and regional inequalities, expressed in article 3, paragraph III of the Federal Constitution. “We ask for special attention to the request for budgetary recomposition, in favor of Brazilians, men and women, who need and depend on Social Assistance”, concludes the national president of the SSVP.

Source: SSVPBRASIL – http://www.ssvpbrasil.org.br/