By David Ambroz, Photo: Courtesy of David Ambroz, Bay Area Reporter, May 24, 2023
Standing at the center of New York City's Grand Central Terminal's main concourse bedraggled and rank in filthy clothes, I watched as the commuters ignored my pleas begging for "just a dollar, sir." I begged in the morning because people were more generous before they had a bad day. This day, though, the crowd parted a few feet in front of me, without even seeing me. As a homeless child, living with my family on the streets, we were invisible. Today, there are more than 100,000 children homeless or housing insecure in the same city where I barely survived. These children are part of more than 10 million American children living in poverty in 2019, with half of those in extreme poverty.
All around us as homeless children were other homeless children. We bedded down in corners of the city, among other children — usually with their mothers. In quiet corners of libraries, we slept. In bathrooms at fast-food restaurants, we bathed ourselves or did our laundry in sinks. Freezing, we children would ride public transit from one end of the line to the other to stay warm. At 5, 6, and 7 respectively, my siblings and I would always enter bathrooms together — to ensure we got out unmolested. These were thoughts we had as children — to survive another day.
At the Methodist food pantry, or the uptown Presbyterian Church's free meals, we'd wait in the long, long lines, absolutely aching for sustenance. There around us in line, the children were not lively. We children, deprived of sufficient calories, were shadows of the efflorescent "normal" child.
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