I remember the first night where my family and I stepped foot into Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH). I was so scared and confused on what was happening in our life at that moment.

For those who do not know what PATH is, it’s the agency that homeless families go to get placed in shelters.

I was 13 years old.

I was in the 8th grade.

I saw the worry in my mothers eyes contemplating whether or not there would be a roof over our head that night.

I saw the carefree and tiredness in my 2 year old brothers eyes.

But I felt the scared burning of me trying to hold the tears, for at that moment I understood the one thing that was clear to me:

We. Are. Homeless. 

Never in my entire life did I think that something like that would happen to us. But it did. And I would never wish that on anyone, especially any child, for it is the most terrifying situation ever.

We were there at PATH bright and early waiting. And when I say wait, I mean dreadfully counting the hours that passed until our number was called.

15218.

It was past midnight when our number was called. We had to speak to multiple case workers for them to decide if we could be placed in a shelter. That took even longer. They all asked the same questions:

1. Why are you here?
2. How did you hear about PATH?
3. Where are you coming from?
4. Can you go back to your last location?

They were always trying to convince my mother to make us and others go back to where they came from, which made no sense because we were obviously all there because we had no good or stable home to go back to. 

When they were all done questioning my mother they made us go back to the waiting room for our number to be called again.

Over 2 hours later our number was finally called.

We were exhausted.

They gave us a MetroCard and an address to the shelter that we would be staying in.

This was just the beginning.

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