The Flatlands Family Residence is a shelter for homeless families that sits near the end of a subway line in Brooklyn next to a truck depot and across the street from an industrial air-conditioning business. Drawings made by the children who live there are are taped on the walls of a hallway that extends past a metal detector manned by security guards. Those children include Diana Duncan’s four kids, who sleep on bunk beds and often do their homework at a small table in the kitchen.
The Duncan family has been living in Flatlands since April. Their journey into the shelter system began when Duncan was forced to give up her job as a registered nurse to care for her 4-year-old son Dayle, who has Down syndrome and health problems that include breathing difficulties. After she separated from her husband, a bank foreclosed on her house and she ended up in Flatlands.
Duncan says it’s a daily struggle getting her kids to school. She asked to be placed in a shelter closer to her childrens’ schools but said she was told there were none available. So, her children have to line up in front of the Flatlands residence at 6:45 a.m. to get on school buses—it can take them up to two hours to get there. They often arrive late and exhausted; a doctor told Duncan that the long trip is bad for Dayle’s health.
[For more of this story, written by Sascha Brodsky, go to http://www.citylab.com/housing...r-and-school/509993/]
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