Community Psychology and Life on the Streets: Problematizations of the Concept of Community

This chapter aims to problematize the concept of community from the perspective of homeless people, based on the contributions of Community Psychology. To that end, it conceives the Liberation Paradigm as an ethical and political reference, which points to the analysis and experience of community activity in the territory together with those who have the streets as a place to live, survive, and struggle. The experience of homeless people is marked by extreme poverty, lack of fixed housing and weakening of social bonds. However, new practices and sociability are also built. We start from Community Psychology to redefine the concept of community as a physical and social space for the elaboration of meaning. From this conception, we propose challenges for the praxis with the homeless people that considers their displacements, transience, support networks and solidary and transforming actions, through potentialization of critical and active subjects.