By Eliza Shapiro, Brittainy Newman/The New York Times
Nov. 19, 2019
My reporting does not often begin before dawn. But on a couple of chilly mornings last month, I set out around 5 a.m. through mostly deserted streets into the far reaches of Queens and Brooklyn to meet two children who I hoped would bring the story of an enormous student homelessness crisis to life.
I cover the New York City school system and have been reporting on student homelessness for years. The number of school-aged children in temporary housing has ballooned by more than 70 percent over the past decade. I knew that the best way for readers to understand this tragedy playing out in plain sight would be to introduce them to children who are living through it.
I spent about a month searching for families who would be willing to let me and Brittainy Newman, a photography fellow at the Times, shadow them for a day. I called the principals of schools with high homeless populations whom I had built relationships with, and reached out to advocacy groups that help families find services and busing to school.
Then I found Sherine and Maria. Sherine and three of her children live in a shelter in Jamaica, Queens. Maria and her five children share a single room. Both were incredibly warm and gracious, and said they would be happy to let us into their lives for a day if it meant the article could help other families in situations like theirs. Sherine’s son, Darnell, 8, goes to a school 15 miles from where they live. Maria’s 10-year-old daughter, Sandivel, attends a school where nearly half the students are homeless.
I got permission from both of the schools’ principals, who wanted to show us what it takes to run a school where somewhere between a third and a half of the students are homeless. They are operating on shoestring budgets and are desperate to raise awareness about the problem. They said they needed more guidance counselors, social workers and other support staff focused on students’ well-being.
So Brittainy and I showed up in Jamaica and watched dozens of students board buses to far-off schools in the dark, while we waited for Darnell to wake up. We stood outside of Sandivel’s house, along with our colleague from the Metro desk, Andrea Salcedo, who spoke to Maria in Spanish and translated for us. Before the light in Sandivel’s bedroom turned on, I saw her eyes shining in the darkness, peeking out onto the sidewalk to get a glimpse of us.
We rode the subway with these families, and learned more about all that the mothers had been through. Both are survivors of domestic violence and victims of a housing crisis that has transformed New York in recent years. They are two of the most organized, patient people I have met in the over six years that I have been on this beat.
Once we arrived at school, we tried to fade into the background as much as possible. At one point, in Darnell’s English class, Brittainy folded herself into a closet meant for backpacks to get a good angle of Darnell. I could barely see her, but I heard the clicks of her camera. When Darnell got into a fight with another student, the guidance counselor welcomed us into his office to show us how he tries to de-escalate conflicts.
We sat with Sandivel and her friends at lunch in her school’s cramped cafeteria, and watched them make lists of the boys they had crushes on. At recess, some of the children wanted to show us how adept they were at hanging from the monkey bars. While I was taking notes, I looked up and noticed that Brittainy was standing on the top of a slide to get a good shot.
Following these children from sunrise to sunset required a serious amount of stamina, and made clear how much it takes for these students to just get through a day. We were yawning by lunchtime, when the children’s school days had barely begun.
What will stay with me the most from the days I spent with these two children are the small but exquisite moments of lightness.
While we passed over the Manhattan Bridge on the subway ride home, Sandivel gave me a tour of the places she would like to visit most. “I want to go on a boat that passes the Statue of Liberty,” she said, pointing across the East River. “I wouldn’t mind going to South Ferry,” she added.
And after football practice, Darnell and his siblings heard a car blasting Stevie Wonder’s popular song “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” out of its open windows. The children danced the whole way down the sidewalk.