The paper focuses reports of homeless children about their experience of living in shelters. It's a part of one research of which purpose was to allow the street children themselves, on São Paulo city, to express their representation about their life's trajectory. The data, gathered by individual interviews, were organise according to the method of the Analysis of Contents and principles of the theory of the Social Representation. The categories detached from the speech transcript, were grouped into meaningful experiences for the children, among which "the shelters". The analyse of this category showed clearly that the lack of a personal and affectionate attendance in the shelters contributes to the children choosing to stay in the streets.
Homeless children; Violence; Refuge; School health