María Elena Flores, an undocumented immigrant and single mother of five, including a newborn, told us she was shocked when the department of homeless services notified her that she had to vacate the shelter where she has been living for several months.
“I felt sad, on the streets, with my five children, because it is not an easy situation, because we had already been unable to sleep and not eat for about three days,” says Flores.
María Elena is 36 years old, is from Honduras and arrived in the city in search of asylum at the beginning of August.
He tells us what he did there:
“From five in the morning I got up, I got up early to watch over my children and I arrived at 11 at night selling clothes.”
But that after the pandemic her business went bankrupt and that her economic situation led her to leave her country.
“Is not easy. It is true that you discover the American dream when you are living in this country”, he continues.
Since she arrived, she has been a refugee in this Brooklyn shelter, but she points out that an employee of the homeless department told her that she had to vacate the shelter this Friday afternoon to be transferred to a nearby hotel on 39th Street in Sunset Park.
Maria Elena Flores
“It’s that there is no kitchen, I don’t have money to be buying food for the children,” he says.
Sources from the management of the shelter told us that the change was due to the fact that with the baby they now exceed the maximum capacity in the shelter.
This Friday afternoon, after we interviewed her:
“They closed my apartment. They gave me keys and told me that they were not going to let me in.”
But she explains that later they gave her the entrance and that, for now, she was not going to be transferred.
“They told me that I had to wait until there was a suitable apartment for us, so that we could be in better conditions as they had promised me.”
We tried to contact the homeless services department several times during the day and they finally told us that they are looking into this mother’s case.
