Rio de Janeiro went through a time of great urban transformation, as a result of being chosen as the host city for major sporting events: the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. With a justification of making the city accessible to receiving the mega-events, countless works were carried out in the city, mainly in areas of great real estate value, which caused a removal of countless favelas. Among the processes involved in the removal processes, there is also the social worker. This paper aims to reflect on a social worker update in removal processes, based on the principles contained in the Code of Professional Ethics of 1993. To this end, the present paper addresses the role of the social worker in housing, trying to understand the emergence of the profession and the challenges encountered for the exercise of their professional practice. With the intention of a current historical context, this work is a historical rescue on the context of favelização, mainly in the city of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the impacts brought by the mega-events. These reflections will contribute to an analysis of the case study referring to Vila Autódromo, one of the most emblematic cases of removals occurred in the city of Rio de Janeiro.