The New York subway rattles over the tracks, over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn. The eye falls on the picture book New York, how the morning sun shines on the water of the East River and the glass facades of the skyscrapers.
Robert and his three children take no notice – one is sleeping on his knees, another leaning against the window. You’re on your way to school, three hours on the subway, from the homeless dorm to school. Everyday life.
“It hurts a lot for me. Every day I think about what that might do with the children. They are much too small to understand all of this.”
The family lost their apartment two months ago – Robert has not found anything affordable since then. Although the single father works full time. The children may not understand the background to the changes, but they can feel their effects. Lack of sleep, hunger.
“The way is long and we are often late. Then we miss the school breakfast.”
It is easy to get homeless in New York
After school there is a short time to stop at the playground. The children play tree house – a separate one for everyone. Everyone can visit the other here, you just have to ring the bell.
Unlike in the accommodations where visits are prohibited.
It is easy to get homeless in New York – housing is expensive. A fifth of New Yorkers are considered poor. 105,000 school children were homeless in the last school year. Josef Kannegaard from the Research Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness analyzes child poverty in New York.
“What visitors to New York often fail to notice are the high rates of poverty and homelessness. The trend is increasing, since the 2010 school year the number of homeless students has risen by 56 percent.”
The consequences: the children are constantly absent from school and have health problems.
“On average, 74 percent of New York schoolchildren graduate within the allotted time. Only 56 percent of students who were homeless during their school days make it.”
A city with two faces
The reasons for the absenteeism: The accommodations are overcrowded, the children often end up in a homeless shelter, far away from school.
In addition, the students accumulate absent days because they have to accompany their parents to appointments in the city or move from shelter to shelter. School-age children are swarming outside the city’s homeless family collection point in the Bronx, north New York. We meet Althea, she is five months pregnant and has an autistic son.
“The attitude of the city is – everything has already been experienced. We are still a number in there. Another face. Homelessness is everywhere. Here in New York, in such a rich city. We are undesirable here, we are the sediment here.” “
Today she’s only hoping for a place to sleep for a few more days. If something comes up, she’s prepared.
“I have a car, I sleep in it if I have to, I even have blankets and as long as I have money to refuel, we are warm. I can drive my child to school in the same car. I will embroider an S for Superman on the chest and just keep going. Nobody cares about us. “
New York’s homeless children – the reality of a city with two faces. As rents continue to rise, their chances of having a good start in life decrease.
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