NYTimes: "Invisible Child"; New York City's +22,000 Homeless Children

[DaChampIsHere]

It is a long read but it is well worth it. A NYT author followed a black family working their way through the NYC shelter system over the course of a year, following them through school, work, and life in general.

I'mma try to pull some excerpts and pics for people who don't wanna read, but you should cause it's a really great insight to something that not a lot of people know about or care to think about.

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/?smid=tw-nytimes#/?chapt=1

Dasani’s own neighborhood, Fort Greene, is now one of gentrification’s gems. Her family lives in the Auburn Family Residence, a decrepit city-run shelter for the homeless. It is a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets, where sexual predators have roamed and small children stand guard for their single mothers outside filthy showers.

It is no place for children. Yet Dasani is among 280 children at the shelter. Beyond its walls, she belongs to a vast and invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression, in the most unequal metropolis in America.

Nearly a quarter of Dasani’s childhood has unfolded at Auburn, where she shares a 520-square-foot room with her parents and seven siblings.

The question of public responsibility has gained urgency in recent decades. By the time Mr. Bloomberg was elected, children made up 40 percent of shelter residents.

“We’re not walking away from taking care of the homeless,” the mayor said early on. “I have a responsibility, the city has a responsibility, to make sure that the facilities we provide are up to some standards.”

The Bloomberg administration set out to revamp the shelter system, creating 7,500 units of temporary housing, a database to track the shelter population and a program intended to prevent homelessness with counseling, job training and short-term financial aid. The new system also made it harder for families to be found eligible for shelter.

For a time, the numbers went down. But in the wake of profound policy changes and a spiraling economy, more children wound up in shelters than at any time since the creation of the shelter system in the early 1980s.

Great story brehs. Read it all the way through if you can/have the time.

 

[Just like bruddas]

this touched home

When i was 5 our house caught on fire and we was homeless for a good 4 months, since at that time landlords wouldnt accept families with only one income in the household, which was my father's job. So my mom had to get on welfare just to get a place to stay, we got lucky. Welfare app went through fast. It was the reason why my mom never finished college.

 

[SoulController]

They were the same tender ages as Dasani and Avianna, forming a homeless Brady Bunch as Supreme and Chanel had four more children.

In the crib is Baby Lele, who is tended to by Dasani when her parents are listless from their daily dose of methadone.

ugh, obviously you feel for the kids but wtf are the parents doing. situation already dire and you have 4 fukking kids together

 

[MikelArteta]

Sad situation, sometimes you don't realize how rfortunate you are.

 

[King Poetic]

Be lucky people ur not caught up like this.

it sad seeing these little kids especially having to live like this.

I have seen domestic violence shelters where u see hundreds of women and kids living in cause of fear and threats of boyfriends and husbands.

 

[DaChampIsHere]

Sad situation, sometimes you don't realize how rfortunate you are.

So true. We have no reason to complain. We

 

[SoulController]

the part about the house is heart breaking, you know 2 methodone addicts aint putting tax refund money down on a crib. selling children a dream is the worst, my nephew was basically orphaned and he barely believes anything people tell him because hes been lied to so much

 

[Houston911]

Damn

 

[Yinny]

...

 

[DaChampIsHere]

n the Brooklyn block that is Dasani’s dominion, shoppers can buy a $3 malt liquor in an airless deli where food stamps are traded for cigarettes. Or they can cross the street for a $740 bottle of chardonnay at an industrial wine shop accented with modern art.

It is a sign outside that locale, Gnarly Vines, that catches Dasani’s notice one spring afternoon: “Wine Tasting Tonight 5-8.”

Dasani is hardly conversant in the subject of libations, but this much she knows: A little drink will take off her mother’s edge. Without further ado, Chanel heads into the wine shop on Myrtle Avenue, trailed by four of her eight children. They are lugging two greasy boxes of pizza and a jumbo pack of diapers from Target.

The cashier pauses. The sommelier smiles.

“Wanna try a little rosé?” she asks brightly, pouring from a 2012 bottle of Mas de Gourgonnier. “I would describe it as definitely fruit forward at the beginning.”

Chanel polishes it.

“But really crisp, dry, refreshing ——”

“Not refreshing,” Chanel says. “I just think dry.”

“No, it’s very dry,” says the sommelier, a peppy blonde in wire-rim glasses. “It’s high acid, a little citrusy.”

Chanel sticks out her tongue. She finds the woman’s choice of words unappetizing. To the side of the wine display is a large, silver vase that recalls the family urn, prompting Chanel’s son Khaliq to ask if it contains the ashes of a dead person.

“Oh my gosh, for cremation?” the sommelier asks, shaking her head. “We just use it for spitting in.”

“For spitting?” Chanel says with horror.

“Yeah, it’s got rejected wine in it,” the sommelier says.

Chanel scoffs. She might not like the wine, but she sees no reason to spit it out. She moves on to a Tuscan sangiovese.

Ignoring the spectacle, Dasani scans the room, frowning at a sign on the wall: Liqueur. “They got liquor spelled wrong,” she yelps victoriously.

Actually, the sommelier interjects, that is the French word for the delicate, liquid spirits derived from fruits such as pomegranates and raspberries. “But you’re very right,” she offers sweetly. “That is not how you spell liquor.”

“Not the hood liquor,” Chanel says.

D

 

[Canada Goose]

They used to use old Hotels near JFK Airport as "Shelters". However the rooms didn't have a TV or Cable though. Also had a curfew that you had to be back there by 10PM.

The situation in the OP seems even worse

 

[Yinny]

Finally read the whole series. Nothing short of heartbreaking.

 

[YoNoSe]

This definitely hits home. I basically grew up in a women's shelter. It wasn't the best situation but it definitely contributed to who I am today and my view on different things. We are all fortunate to some degree.

 

[Groanman]

 

[MikelArteta]

Its sad the few replies this got