Based upon Critical Discourse Analysis (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 2003), this study analyses a report of a meeting, distributed as a circular to residents of a middle-class apartment building in Asa Sul, Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. The circular is the outcome of a meeting held between the apartment building's representative, local business people and Federal District Government authorities concerning `homeless people' in the environs of the apartment building and local business establishments. The discursive analysis of the text indicates that it serves in a sense to camouflage the street situation as a social issue. At the same time, it nullifies `homeless people' (Thompson, 1990) by legitimating social apartheid in Brazilian society (Buarque, 2003). The analysis seeks therefore to discuss the naturalization of misery in contemporary societies through the internalization of hegemonic discourses that serve to blank out basic social rights.