Homeless People, COVID-19 and the Insufficient and Discriminatory Measures Adopted by the City of Buenos Aires’s Government

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a high impact in the Latin American region since March 2020, has produced the dictation of various measures in order to, in principle, guarantee better health conditions for the population. In this paper, I will focus on the situation of homeless people and the measures adopted by the Government of the city of Buenos Aires. I will analyze two judicial decisions in which the measures adopted were questioned. However, these cases were resolved by the judges without applying a robust argument of equality. This analysis will allow me to demonstrate that even though the aim of these measures was to protect disadvantaged people, the appropriate measures were not taken (by omission or insufficiency). My claim is that in the context of the pandemic we needed more than only preventive measures — social distancing. In societies marked by situations of structural inequality suffered by large groups even in emergencies, it is the most vulnerable who should be in the center of the scene when developing public policies.