Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

by Andrea Elliott

Children are not the face of New York’s homeless. They rarely figure among the panhandlers, bag ladies, war vets, and untreated schizophrenics who have long been stock characters in this city of contrasts. They spend their days in school, their nights in the shelter.

Finding a way to do homework is the hardest assignment of all. With no desk or chair—just a maze of mattresses—the children study crouched on sheets stamped PROP. OF THE DEPT. OF HOMELESS SERVICES.

She’d like to meet the mother who endures childbirth, six times over, for some extra food stamps “that barely last the month.”

“How can I pull up any straps with no boots?” she says.

“I don’t love myself,” she says. “That’s my biggest downfall.”

Dasani charts her city in a different way. It is a parallel map, seen only by certain people. Each borough corresponds to a particular code. The Bronx is DHS (the Department of Homeless Services). Queens is HRA (the Human Resources Administration). Brooklyn is ACS (the Administration for Children’s Services).

She finds it easier to see Auburn as the worst possible outcome because the alternative—winding up on the street—is unthinkable.