Erica Lacerda de Souza, son Henrique and husband Bruce Lee de Souza, calm down of their new residence in Guaianazes, São Paulo. The household misplaced their residence when the pandemic took away their livelihoods. They moved in about two months in the past after being homeless, then getting a tiny transitional residence/
Gabriela Porthilo for NPR
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Gabriela Porthilo for NPR
In August 2023, we shared the story of a household of three from São Paulo who had misplaced all the pieces because of the pandemic. With no work, residence, automobile or meals, and their younger son positioned along with his grandmother, they struggled to outlive. They spent nights on the ground at a transit hub and infrequently discovered beds in a shelter.
A program known as Vila Reencontro allowed them to maneuver right into a transitional tiny residence and get entry to meals and social providers. Now, reunited, employed and settled right into a rental in a quiet neighborhood close to household, they’re regularly getting again on their ft.
We adopted as much as see how they’re doing now.
With fists held tight, Henrique rubs his eyes as he closes his bed room door and makes his option to the kitchen to repair himself breakfast. The ten-year-old mumbles a “good morning” to his mother and pa as he passes by the lounge and offers his gray and white cat, affectionately named Psycho, a scratch on the top and beneath the chin.
Within the kitchen, he fills a glass with milk and scoops a heaping spoonful of chocolate powder into it earlier than giving it a stir and placing it within the microwave.
Henrique, son of Érica Lacerda de Souza and Bruce Lee de Souza, has breakfast on the sofa in his new residence in Guaianazes, São Paulo. After they misplaced their rental unit through the early days of the pandemic, Henrique went to dwell along with his grandmother.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
“He at all times makes his personal breakfast,” says his mother, Erica Lacerda de Souza, as she watches him from the kitchen doorway, her husband, Bruce Lee Sousa, nodding in settlement from the sofa within the adjoining front room. “It’s his job to deal with Psycho too. He places out his meals and water and makes positive the litter field is clear. I need him to be impartial and accountable.”
We’re trying again at a few of our favourite Goats and Soda tales to see “no matter occurred to …”
Only a yr in the past the trio was one in every of 37 households every of whom had been dwelling in a tiny home within the downtown São Paulo neighborhood of Anhangabaú. It was a part of a municipal program known as Vila Reencontro, impressed by New York’s Housing First program from the Nineteen Nineties and one of many methods the Brazilian metropolis of 12 million was attempting to assist its rising variety of unhoused folks, notably through the pandemic, get again on their ft. This system offers households with tiny properties for as much as 36 months together with entry to meals and social providers.
All is misplaced
After they needed to shut their bodega due to pandemic rules and their different work dwindled — Lacerda de Souza’s as a cleaner and Lee Sousa’s at a automobile wash — they misplaced the home they rented and virtually all the pieces in it. Whereas Henrique, who was then 6, was despatched to dwell along with his maternal grandmother, the couple spent two weeks sleeping on the ground at São Paulo’s downtown Barra Funda Terminal — a central hub for metropolis transit — and months making their approach by town’s shelter and different non permanent housing techniques earlier than studying about Vila Reencontro and being supplied a tiny residence.
Érica Lacerda de Souza helps her son, Henrique, repair his hair. She says that this is likely one of the boy’s vanities — he needs to ensure his curls look good earlier than heading off to high school.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
There, Henrique was in a position to dwell with them once more, and so they had been offered a slew of different alternatives, together with assist discovering everlasting housing and jobs.
Simply six months after shifting to the 194-square-foot residence — barely smaller than a one-car storage — Lee Sousa was supplied a spot in a piece program and began his job with town’s sanitation division — which he nonetheless has at present — final September. The trio additionally benefited from a metropolis housing program that allowed them to flip by a listing of potential properties accessible to lease so they may select what could be one of the best match for his or her household.
A brand new starting
After seeing a number of choices, they determined to go along with their spacious residence within the east-end neighborhood of Guaianases, which they’ve now been in for about two months. It’s removed from downtown, however Lacerda de Souza says it’s what she prefers.
Érica Lacerda de Souza hangs on the wall of her home the one image she has of her household — taken throughout a stroll in Villa Lobos Park in an upscale space of town. All the opposite photos she had of her household had been misplaced once they misplaced their residence.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
“I like dwelling in a quiet, household neighborhood,” she says. “Right here I can stroll to the grocery store, there’s a bakery across the nook and Henrique doesn’t have far to go to high school. We’re quite a bit nearer to my mother’s home now too, so it’s straightforward for her to come back go to or for Henrique to go spend time together with her.”
The housing program pays their lease for the following two years and has already helped them furnish their new residence, offering them with a desk, a mattress, armoires and a fridge. Different gadgets — like their sofa and range — they bought themselves, as they slowly rebuild what they misplaced. After two years, the household ought to have the ability to pay their very own lease.
The household receives visits each different week from a program social employee, who has additionally helped them get entry to medical care – Lacerda de Souza has again ache from two herniated discs — and regulate to their new circumstances.
“There are such a lot of small stuff you take as a right,” Lee Sousa says. “Like understanding learn how to plan your month-to-month grocery run. It’s been years since we had been ready to do this ourselves. If you’re in shelters and even within the tiny residence, meals are simply served to you. Now we’ve to relearn learn how to finances for what we want.”
Erica Lacerda de Souza, her son, Henrique, and her husband, Bruce Lee de Souza, calm down of their new residence in Guaianazes, São Paulo.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
The three like spending time collectively in the lounge, the place they typically lay the mattress from the couple’s bed room on the ground to allow them to watch motion pictures and TV exhibits collectively. Lee Sousa has a penchant for Indian movies, whereas Lacerda de Souza prefers exhibits like Supernatural and Henrique likes watching Cobra Kai.
Their new house is on the high of a prolonged flight of stairs, and the household has already befriended their neighbors who dwell within the different three flats off the lengthy stretch of hall. When Lee Sousa is at work and Henrique is at college, Lacerda de Souza likes to talk over espresso with the 2 younger ladies who dwell subsequent door. When Lee Sousa arrives, their youthful male neighbors are sometimes ready for him to speak one thing over or ask for recommendation.
And Henrique has been doing exceptionally effectively at college, making new pals shortly and by no means desirous to miss a day. Each morning he takes his time doing his hair, ensuring the curls are good, earlier than his mother walks him to the nook, the place she watches him head up the road as a result of he doesn’t need his pals to see that she’s with him.
“I assume he’s already getting too outdated for that,” she says with amusing.
A spiritual revival
Their home, says Lacerda de Souza, is never empty now, and has grow to be a hub not just for household — weekend pasta nights are a favourite occasion — but in addition for his or her spiritual neighborhood.
The household’s religion lies within the Afro-Brazilian faith known as Quimbanda, one of the vital stigmatized religions within the nation. Resulting from cultural misunderstanding and destructive stereotypes, they struggled to apply it whereas dwelling in shelters and the tiny residence for concern that others wouldn’t perceive.
Érica Lacerda de Souza gives brandy to one of many religious entities in her residence. Érica is a “mãe de santo.” a non secular priestess of Umbanda, an Afro-Brazilian faith. Right this moment, in her residence, she and her husband apply Umbanda rituals and welcome different believers.
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
However a small space off the lounge of their new residence has allowed them to return to training their religion, the place statues of saints and different sacred objects are on show to allow them to pray and meditate — at all times with the curtains drawn. Others from the neighborhood are sometimes there to do the identical, and a few keep over on the household’s new residence once they have nowhere else to go.
“Having your individual house is all the pieces,” says Lacerda de Souza. “It’s releasing. And I’m at all times joyful to assist others. The place would we be if no person had helped us?”
Jill Langlois is an impartial journalist primarily based in São Paulo, Brazil. She has been freelancing from the biggest metropolis within the western hemisphere since 2010, writing and reporting for publications like Nationwide Geographic, The New York Instances, The Guardian and Time. Her work focuses on human rights, the surroundings and the influence of socioeconomic points on folks’s lives.
