After a decade of living on the streets in Brazil, a homeless man was reunited with his family when his photo went viral on Instagram.
In an act of kindness, barbershop owner and country singer Alessandro Lobo asked a homeless man if he was hungry or needed something to eat.
The man he was addressing was João Coelho Guimarães, from Brazil, who’d been separated from his family for several years. He had been collecting and reselling cans to survive, and while he refused Lobo’s offer to provide food, he asked if he could get his beard trimmed inside Lobo’s barbershop.
It was a good deed that made them both feel good, as well as many online. But what they didn’t expect was that word would get back to the homeless man’s family, who didn’t know what had happened to him and had feared the worst. They saw the pictures on Instagram and recognized their loved one.
On Dec. 17, 2020, Guimarães’s mother and sister traveled to meet him, and they were reunited after being estranged for 10 years.
“João is still on the streets. His sister wanted to welcome him and take him home, but he didn’t want to,” he said. “He said that on the streets, he feels free. That’s why he didn’t want to go home.”
Still, Lobo is glad he was able to help the family find each other once again. He says it was not the outcome he anticipated when he offered food to a stranger on the streets.
