The policy of harm reduction among the homeless population: a constitutional imperative for the affirmation of human dignity and the overcoming of degrading punitive engineering

Abstract

The article investigates the extent to which the National Policy for the Homeless Population (Decree No. 7,053/2009), articulated with the harm reduction approach, contributes to the realization of human dignity and to overcoming punitive engineering directed at users of psychoactive substances in street situations, considering the dimensions of intersectionality, social stigma, and aporophobic necropolitics. This national policy is examined as a constitutional instrument aimed at protecting life and addressing extreme vulnerability. The condition of homelessness, marked by poverty, lack of housing, and fragile emotional bonds, often leads to the use of psychoactive substances, requiring the State to respond with constitutional public policies. The research adopts the hypothetical-deductive method, with a qualitative approach and documentary, bibliographic, and jurisprudential analysis, using an intersectional focus. It argues that harm reduction embodies human dignity and breaks with punitive and exclusionary logic, rather than pathologizing the subject. By prioritizing care, recognition, and social justice, it fosters the reconstruction of citizenship and the mitigation of structural violence directed at the homeless population.