The objective of this essay is to question the conventional forms used by institutions to deal with the homeless. These practices seem to be related to a certain contemporary appropriation of the human rights. From this vantage point, we present and discuss a clinical possibility in social assistance, which is based on the notion of individual as conceived by Alain Badiou. In such a perspective, it is discussed the viability of citizenship exercise by a human being that, in a sense, finds himself/herself restricted to animal condition. In order to illustrate and to demonstrate the applicability of such a theoretical construction, a clinical fragment is presented in the last section of the essay.
Social clinic; Homeless; Human rights; Individual