It is strange, this feeling of heading toward an address they don’t have while saying goodbye—in the span of a few hours—to their longtime home. They pack whatever they can fit into twenty clear plastic bags. At 9:26 p.m. on October 17, 2013—more than three years after moving into Auburn—Chanel and her children board the last van. Turtle is still in the room. An hour later, they pull up to their new residence. Of all the shelters where Dasani’s family could have landed, they have somehow wound up on West 145th Street in Harlem—one block from the Bartendaz base.
