Itinerant food environment: A look at the homeless population

In Brazil, amid social inequality and poverty, access to adequate food is a basic principle of subsistence. The homeless population is one of the groups most exposed to all kinds of social vulnerability and experiences the problem of hunger on a daily basis. A Brazilian public policy for food access is the Popular Restaurants Program, a recognized route for the homeless population and a case study for analyzing other access possibilities from the perspective of the Food Environment. The objective of this study was to analyze the food environment of homeless people benefiting from the Popular Restaurants program in the city of Porto Alegre (southern Brazil). This is a qualitative study that used the methodological techniques of ethnographic participant observation and in-depth interviews. The analysis was carried out using thematic content analysis. The results were grouped into three main thematic categories: the places accessed by the homeless population in their search for food; the characteristics of these access points and, finally, what food is accessed at these places. The data indicates various points of food access in the municipality studied and outlines a profile of itinerancy by region, identifying areas of circulation and permanence in the city and characterizing the food environment of the homeless population studied. Thus, the concept developed in this article of 'Itinerant Food Environment' proposes to broaden the theoretical framework for analyzing food environments, and also leaves some empirical impressions that support the planning of future studies aimed at addressing the theoretical model and the creation of application tools.