The paper focuses on the child in a street situation, through the address by a group of school-age children who used to frequent two public São Paulo city shelters. The purpose was to apprehend its representation on its reality. The data, gathered by means of interviews, were organized and analyzed according to the method of the Analysis of Contents. The thematic theories detached from the speech transcript were grouped into meaningful experiences for the children, among which "the street". The synthesis of the analyzed categories showed clearly that violence permeates the lives of children of/in the street, resulting in experiences that restrict their full development. The street represents a refuge to the child coming from a needy family and also to the one who has a history of abuse from its family.
homeless youth; battered child syndrome; violence