How can I change path as root dir (PHP / Apache )?

Nowadays I use path to file (in DB) like this

“/files/person_1/awatar.png” – it works , file_get_content (“/files/person_1/awatar.png”) = true – is ok!

But now I changed my web server and … In PHP I can see “directory not found exception”

Path on server: /var/www/public_html/new_service_xxxxx/files/awatar.png
In PHP I have “/” as first character, I don’t want to change it.

What I should change ?

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName test.new_service_xxxxx.pl
    ServerAlias www.new_service_xxxxx.pl
    DocumentRoot /var/www/public_html/new_service_xxxxx


    <Directory /var/www/public_html/new_service_xxxxxk>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    <IfModule mod_dir.c>
        DirectoryIndex index.php index.pl index.cgi index.html index.xhtml index.htm index.php5
    </IfModule>

</VirtualHost>