The first shelter was I think somewhere in a not so pretty part in Manhattan.

There were so many that we moved into that it was hard to keep up with addresses.

But I can remember how everything was that first night.

We walked in the front lobby of the shelter close to 3:30 in the morning. We were exhausted! My mom was talking to the front desk to give the man our paper work and my baby brother was passed out in the stroller.

My mother retrieved the keys to the room we were going to be staying in. She opened the door and it was disgusting. The window was broken, which was not good because it was late February and there was a blizzard outside! But of coarse the broken window was okay because there was a plastic bag to “block” the harsh winds coming in the room.

There was a crib, a wobbly bunk-bed, and a full size bed.

The shelter had some old fleece blankets and sheets in the room for us to use.

My mom and I set up the full size. We all slept in the same bed because the other two were just dangerously disgusting for us to sleep in.

That first morning in the shelter we woke up to things needed to be cleaned. We went to the corner store to grab some cleaning supplies and some drinks, grabbed some Chinese food next door, and headed back to the shelter.

We had a tiny kitchen. The smallest kitchen I had ever seen. It was also very dirty.

There was a tiny stove and fridge with the complementary of roaches crawling everywhere.

We had no pots or pans, so we couldn’t cook anything until my mother bought some. My mother was thankfully able to heat up my brothers baby food and milk with her portable bottle warmer.

The ceiling was broken and leaking which resulted in the need to buy a mop.

My mother made a complaint about the damages of the room to our shelters supervisor, but they never did a thing. My brother was starting to get sick because the room was so cold. I was scared because I didn’t want my poor baby to suffer another hospitalization.

But this was our life now.

This is what our definition of “home” was supposed to be for the time being.

At least until there was a notice on our door 4 days later to pack up all of our belongings and return to PATH because we were denied shelter.

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