Friday, October 25, 2013

Hidden City


As a graduate student at Columbia, I wrote my master's project about how homeless women find prenatal care. It was a quixotic adventure navigating homeless shelters across New York City, from the Emergency Assistance Unit to Covenant House to a women's shelter that was across the street from a chicken processing plant, deep in East New York, off of the C train.

I was very excited to see this piece in the The New Yorker this week, about the state of homelessness in New York City. I knew exactly where Ian Frazier was in many of the passages, because I had been there as well, 10 years ago. Much has certainly changed, but I was surprised by how much, according to this article, had not.

There are more homeless in New York City now than ever before, and due to cutbacks in certain housing rebates, families are very much part of that population. If you read nothing else this week, read this.

Hidden City