Well, just like a bunch of big cities, Sao Paulo shows in downtown most of its history and signs of a more glamorous era just as much as it shows the social contrast, abandonment, and signs of a Country with at least 1 big financial crisis per decade.

This building was built to be the Municipal Hotel in the late 1910s on the corner of Avenida Sao Joao and Rua Conselheiro Crispiniano in one of the most important blocks in Downtown Sao Paulo at the time and still considered one of the most interesting in terms of history and architecture.

I don't know since when this old hotel building is abandoned, but there's information of the hotel still operational in late 60s.

For the past 10 years or so there's a "routine" regarding the vacancy of the building. Some homeless families breaks in and made the hotel their homes, then a few months or years later the justice or the mayor signs a warrant ordering these families to be removed, then a small riot explodes, some buses are burned on the nearby streets as a "protest", then they go anywhere else and the building stays empty for a few months or years until a new bunch of people decides to live in there again.

Currently there are a few families living in the Municipal Hotel and nearby old buildings.