Helping Raquel return home
17 March 2026
Communications Manager Ana Rodrigues reflects on supporting a Brazilian woman experiencing homelessness in London
At the end of last year, colleagues from our City Outreach team contacted me about a Brazilian woman they had encountered sleeping rough in the City of London. At that point, they knew very little about her, not even her real name.
What they did know was that she did not speak English and was reluctant to use phone line translation services, which made it very difficult for the team to communicate with her or understand her situation.
Because I am Brazilian and had previously volunteered on an internal spreadsheet as someone who could support other Thames Reach services with Portuguese interpretation, the team reached out to ask if I could assist.
That was how I first came across Raquel (name changed to protect her identity).
When I first met her, she appeared confused and extremely reluctant to share information about herself. She did not feel able to trust us or the services trying to help her. At that stage, we knew very little about how she had ended up sleeping rough.
That day, we took Raquel to Snow Hill Court, our Rough Sleeping Assessment Centre in the City of London, where she was properly assessed by the team and had a safe place to sleep for the first time in months. Over time, we began to understand that she had experienced a serious mental health crisis, which had led to her discarding her documents and losing contact with her family. Without identification, without support, and unable to communicate easily in English, she had become extremely vulnerable.
Raquel had not been in the UK for very long, had no support network here, and had also experienced traumatic situations with people she had previously lived and worked with, which may have contributed to triggering her mental health breakdown. At the time, she was not receiving treatment or taking medication.
Speaking with her in Portuguese helped create a sense of safety, although it still took time to build trust.
Reconnecting with her family
A few weeks later, I saw Raquel again when I was visiting Snow Hill Court Assessment Centre. On that day, we talked a bit more, and she trusted me enough to tell me her full name and the name of her brother.
With that information, I was able to locate him on social media and contact the family in Brazil. They had been desperately searching for news about her and had not heard from her for a long time.
From that point onwards, I became more involved in supporting Raquel’s case. Because we had established trust and shared a common language and cultural background, I was able to support her in meetings related to resolving her situation, including immigration and other processes.
Throughout this period, with support from Snow Hill Court and its partner organisations, Raquel was informed of her rights and consistently expressed that her main wish was to return home to Brazil and reconnect with her family.
However, making that happen was not straightforward. She had no identification documents, and during the time she had been sleeping rough, there had also been an incident involving the police due to her mental health and communication difficulties. Resolving these issues required coordination across several agencies and organisations.
A full circle moment
After around three months of work resolving these issues and collaborating with MAPS — the Migrant Accommodation Pathways Support service run by St Mungo’s — to ensure a safe reconnection plan was in place, Raquel was finally able to travel back to Brazil.
On the day she left, I accompanied her to the airport. Watching her walk through departures felt like a full circle moment: remembering the first time I saw her, extremely vulnerable and still living on the streets, and now seeing her safely on her way home, soon to be reunited with the family who had been so worried about her.
Her brother later shared a message (translated) with us about what her return meant for them:
“We are very happy that everything went well with Raquel’s return. She will now begin her treatment properly, and soon she will be feeling much better.
The work you do makes an enormous difference in the lives of those who truly need it, as was the case with Raquel, and it also brings great peace to families.
If there were more people like you, the world would be very different from what it is today.”
Understanding the reality behind the stories
For me personally, this experience was very meaningful.
In my role as Communications Manager, I spend much of my time telling the stories of the people we support and sharing the work our services do to help raise awareness of our organisation and increase supporter engagement. My role often involves bridging the gap between frontline services and the public.
This experience allowed me to briefly step out of the office and a bit more into the frontline work we do. It highlighted how complex accessing different types of support can be, and how difficult it is for someone in a vulnerable position to navigate them — particularly when they do not speak English, do not understand how the system works in the UK, and may struggle to trust others due to mental health challenges.
Raquel was fortunate that the outreach team had the chance to connect her with someone who could communicate with her in her own language and understand her background. Being accompanied by the same person throughout the entire process helped build a relationship of trust, which made it easier for her to engage with all the services involved in her case. But we know this is not always possible.
The value of collaboration
For me, this highlighted the importance of having staff with diverse backgrounds across organisations supporting vulnerable people, and how essential it is to have well-established collaboration between different teams, services, and partner organisations working across the homelessness sector.
The close collaboration we had in this case was a beneficial experience for everyone involved. It gave me a deeper understanding of the work I usually only write about and inspired me to share this story, while also helping different services make progress with her case and enabling Raquel to return home safely.
Above all, it reinforced something important: no matter the role we were hired to do, in this sector, we are all ultimately working towards the same goal — helping the people we support rebuild their lives and move forward.
Donate today
Your support can help people sleeping rough to escape the streets for good.