The gravity situation of poverty and misery in Brazil is part of the constant worry and make to think about its social influence and, specially, on the family area, where the public politics still resent a more expressive action. To the poor family, designated by hunger and misery, home represents a place of privation, instability and family's links break and solidarity. This study aims to point out the vulnerability of the poor family that is not assisted by public politics being impeached to attend the basic necessities of their members, and support the profundity of the discussing about the construction of alternatives to the family empowerment. It is a field study, exploratory, based on the Social Representations Theory. The instruments used for the collection of data were: Free Association of Words test and semi-structured interview. The results showed that family represents ambiguous feelings, of unity and disunity, associated with the image of lived up family and desired family constructed from the individuals' daily interaction; influencing and being influenced by the conflicting family relationships, conceived due to poverty that the families are submitted.
Social exclusion; Family; Poverty; Public politics