Childhood Without a Home, Part 2: When One Crisis Costs a Family Everything
I’ll never forget a father and his teenage son who sat across from me at a City Relief outreach in Harlem many years ago. Someone had given them a flyer with our location the night before. Desperate to find help, they walked all the way from the Bronx.
His son wouldn’t meet my eyes. At fifteen years old, he stared at the floor as his father told me what had happened. His wife had died a few months earlier. He had quit his job to care for her during the final months of her life, and without a steady income, the family fell behind on rent. Shortly after her death, they were evicted.
This boy had lost his mother and his home in a matter of months.
It may surprise you to hear me say this, but homelessness is not an equal-opportunity crisis. Some families are far more likely to experience it—and children are caught in the middle.
On September 13, 2026, more than 28,000 children slept in New York City’s Department of Homeless Services shelters. During the 2024–2025 school year, nearly one in seven public-school students across the city experienced homelessness.
And this reaches far beyond our city. During the 2023–2024 school year, approximately one in every thirty-one public-school students in America experienced homelessness.
Most weren’t sleeping on sidewalks. They were staying with relatives or friends because their families had nowhere else to go, living in shelters or motels, or sleeping in cars. Their homelessness was often less visible, but their need for a stable home was just as real.
Behind those numbers are children like the fifteen-year-old sitting across from me—carrying a burden no child should have to bear.
His family did not become homeless because his father refused to work or failed to care about his responsibilities. They became homeless because cancer entered their home. Because a husband chose to care for his dying wife. Because grief and lost income collided with rent that was still due.
And when they finally reached the edge, there was no safety net strong enough to catch them. Some families can absorb a crisis like that. They have savings, relatives with a spare bedroom, or an employer who gives them time to care for someone they love. Other families are surrounded by people who love them just as deeply but don’t have the resources to help.
The same tragedy that creates a difficult season for one family can cost another family everything.
That is what I mean when I say homelessness is not an equal-opportunity crisis. A tragedy can happen to any of us. But our ability to survive it without losing our home is far from equal.
If we want to prevent childhood homelessness, we cannot wait until a family is sleeping in a shelter, motel, or vehicle. We have to recognize the crisis earlier. When a parent falls behind on rent, loses a job, escapes an abusive relationship, or begins caring for a sick family member.
By the time we see a child carrying their belongings in a plastic bag, the family’s emergency has often been unfolding for months.
Every child deserves more than the strength to endure homelessness.
Every child deserves a safe and stable home and a community willing to step in before that home is lost.
With Gratitude,
Josiah Haken
City Relief, CEO
