St. Patty's Day, green and white. So in There Are No Children Here, you know, if you go over there to the Henry Horner Homes on the west side, you do have the United Center. Invisible Child: the Life of a Homeless Family in NYC Today, Dasani lives surrounded by wealth, whether she is peering into the boho chic shops near her shelter or surfing the internet on Auburns shared computer. A stunning debut, the book covers eight formative years in the life of an intelligent and imaginative young girl in a Brooklyn homeless shelter as she balances poverty, family, and opportunity. Her siblings are her greatest solace; their separation her greatest fear. Dasani landed at 39 Auburn Place more than two years ago. It is a private landmark the very place where her beloved grandmother Joanie Sykes was born, back when this was Cumberland Hospital. So let's start with what was your beat at the time when you wrote the first story? Their voucher had expired. But, of course, there's also the story of poverty, which has been a durable feature of American life for a very long time. Every once in a while, it would. And they act as their surrogate parents. Chris Hayes: Yeah. And you just have to know that going in and never kid yourself that it has shifted. Some girls may be kind enough to keep Dasanis secret. The invisible child of the title is Dasani Coates. Email withpod@gmail.com. In this moving but occasionally flat narrative, Elliott follows Dasani for eight years, beginning in 2012 when she was 11 years old and living in Here in the neighbourhood, the homeless are the lowest caste, the outliers, the shelter boogies. Except for Baby Lee-Lee, who wails like a siren. It's important to not live in a silo. And we can talk about that more. And it's, I think, a social good to do so. But you know what a movie is. Some places are more felt than seen the place of homelessness, the place of sisterhood, the place of a mother-child bond that nothing can break. Like, you could tell the story about Jeff Bezos sending himself into space. Until then, Dasani considered herself a baby expert. . Nonetheless, she landed on the honor roll that fall. Elliott says those are the types of stories society tends to glorify because it allows us to say, if you work hard enough, if you are gifted enough, then you can beat this.. 'Invisible Child' and childhood homelessness; Implants to The pounding of fists. Chris Hayes: So she's back in the city. And that's just the truth. Coca Cola had put it out a year earlier. But she told me, and she has told me many times since, that she loves the book. And so it would break the rules. The problems of poverty are so much greater, so much more overwhelming than the power of being on the front page of The New York Times. We see a story of a girl who's trying to not escape, she says. There have been a few huge massive interventions that have really altered the picture of what poverty looks like in the U.S., chiefly the Great Society and the New Deal and some other things that have happened since then. Andrea Elliott: Okay. But I would say that at the time, the parents saw that trust as an obstacle to any kind of real improvement because they couldn't access it because donors didn't want money going into the hands of parents with a drug history and also because they did continue to receive public assistance. You know, it was low rise projects. We could have a whole podcast about this one (LAUGH) issue. And that's really true of the poor. She actually did a whole newscast for me, which I videotaped, about Barack Obama becoming the first Black president. Beyond the shelters walls, in the fall of 2012, Dasani belongs to an invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children the highest number ever recorded, in the most unequal metropolis in America. And they did attend rehab at times. She doesn't want to have to leave. Criminal justice. She was doing so well. WebBrowse, borrow, and enjoy titles from the MontanaLibrary2Go digital collection. Dasani gazes out of the window from the one room her family of 10 shared in the Brooklyn homeless shelter where they lived for almost four years. That's so irresponsible." Book review: Andrea Elliott's 'Invisible Child' spotlights The people I hang out with. Invisible Child: Girl in the Shadows reportedly was the longest ever published in the newspaper up to that time. The Child Protection Agency began monitoring Dasanis parents on suspicion of parental neglect, Elliott says. She would change her diaper. She is a child of New York City. Radiating out from them in all directions are the eight children they share: two boys and five girls whose beds zigzag around the baby, her crib warmed by a hairdryer perched on a milk crate. They were put in a situation where things were out of their control. And that didn't go over well because he just came (LAUGH) years ago from Egypt. She is tiny for an 11-year-old and quick to startle. Andrea Elliott: --it (LAUGH) because she was trying to show me how relieved she was that our brutal fact check process was over and that she didn't have to listen to me say one more line. And I think showing the dignity within these conditions is part of that other lens. Andrea Elliott: I didn't really have a beat. I live in Harlem. But I met her standing outside of that shelter. What's your relationship with her now and what's her reaction to the book? Life has been anything but easy for 20-year-old Dasani Coates. I think that that was a major compass for me was this idea that, "Don't ever get too comfortable that you know your position here or your place. Sort of, peak of the homeless crisis. To follow Dasani, as she comes of age, is also to follow her seven siblings. And I had avoided it. Slipping out from her covers, Dasani goes to the window. It's massively oversubscribed. And I understand the reporters who, sort of, just stop there and they describe these conditions and they're so horrifying. If danger comes, Dasani knows what to do. And it also made her indispensable to her parents, which this was a real tension from the very beginning. Like, these two things that I think we tend to associate with poverty and, particularly, homelessness, which is mental illness and substance abuse, which I think get--, Chris Hayes: --very much, particularly in the way that in an urban environment, get codified in your head of, like, people who were out and, you know, they're dealing with those two issues and this is concentrated. No. Andrea Elliott: Absolutely. WebPULITZER PRIZE WINNER NATIONAL BESTSELLER A vivid and devastating (The New York Times) portrait of an indomitable girlfrom acclaimed journalist Andrea ElliottFrom its first indelible pages to its rich and startling conclusion, Invisible Child had me, by turns, stricken, inspired, outraged, illuminated, in tears, and hungering for This is so important." And as prosperity rose for one group of people, poverty deepened for another, leaving Dasani to grow up true to her name in a novel kind of place. And there was a lot of complicated feelings about that book, as you might imagine. They loved this pen and they would grab it from me (LAUGH) and they would use it as a microphone and pretend, you know, she was on the news. In order to witness those scenes, I have to be around. Beyond its walls, she belongs to a vast and invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression, in the most unequal metropolis in America. Who paid for water in a bottle? You know, my fridge was always gonna be stocked. WebRT @usaunify: When Dasani Left Home. ", And we were working through a translator. And I did some quick research and I saw that, in fact, the child poverty rate remained one in five. Thats not gonna be me, she says. They spend their days in school, their nights in the shelter. Yes. With only two microwaves, this can take an hour. And I met Dasani right in that period, as did the principal. So civic equality is often honored in the breach, but there is the fact that early on, there is a degree of material equality in the U.S. that is quite different from what you find in Europe. They did go through plenty of cycles of trying to fix themselves. And by the time she got her youngest siblings to school and got to her own school, usually late, she had missed the free breakfast at the shelter and the free breakfast at her school. Now the bottle must be heated. I feel good. Her sense of home has always been so profound even though she's homeless. Part of the government. She would help in all kinds of ways. Find that audio here. And you got power out of fighting back on some level. And to each of those, sort of, judgments, Dasani's mother has an answer. The other thing you asked about were the major turning points. Still, the baby howls. And this book really avoids it. We break their necks. Chanel was raised on the streets and relied on family bonds, the reporter learned. Chris Hayes: Dasani is 11 years old. Shes not alone. Strangers do not see the opioid addiction that chases her mother, or the prisons that swallowed her uncles, or the cousins who have died from gang shootings and Aids. (BACKGROUND MUSIC) It is an incredible feat of reporting and writing. And now, on this bright September morning, Dasani will take her grandmothers path once again, to the promising middle school two blocks away. I have a lot of things to say: one girls life growing up homeless in Luckily, in this predawn hour, the cafeteria is still empty. She calls him Daddy. But what about the ones who dont? It was a constant struggle. Their sister is always first. She is 20 years old. She's been through this a little bit before, right, with the series. Parental neglect, failure to provide necessities for ones children like shelter or clothing, is one form of child maltreatment that differs from child abuse, she says. Chris Hayes: You know, the U.S., if you go back to de Tocqueville and before that, the Declaration and the founders, you know, they're very big (LAUGH) on civic equality. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. Chris Hayes: Yeah. Andrea Elliotts story of American poverty is non-fiction writing at And through the years of American journalism, and some of the best journalism that has been produced, is about talking about what that looks like at the ground level. Nope.. And what really got me interested, I think, in shifting gears was in the end of 2011, Occupy Wall Street happened. You are seeing the other. Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on May 16, 2022. Well, every once in a while, a roach here and there in New York. She is always warming a bottle or soothing a cranky baby. You can try, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City., Why the foster care system needs to change as aid expires for thousands of aged-out youth, The Pandemic's Severe Toll On The Already-Strained Foster Care System. She lasted more than another year. Back then, from the ghettos isolated corners, a perfume ad seemed like the portal to a better place. with me, your host, Chris Hayes. I want people to read the book, which is gonna do a better job of this all because it's so, sort of, like, finely crafted. And, really, the difference is, like, the kind of safety nets, the kind of resources, the kind of access people have--. And for most of us, I would say, family is so important. This is a pivotal, pivotal decade for Brooklyn. The people I grew up with. It's, first of all, the trust, which continues to exist and is something I think people should support. Among them is Dasanis birthplace, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where renovated townhouses come with landscaped gardens and heated marble floors. And they were things that I talked about with the family a lot. It doesn't have to be a roof over my head. Invisible Child: Girl in the Shadows reportedly was the longest ever published in the newspaper up to that time. How an "immersionist" held up the story She held the Bible for Tish James, the incoming then-public advocate who held Dasani's fist up in the air and described her to the entire world as, "My new BFF.". And I was trying to get him to agree to let me in for months at a time. In Fort Greene alone, in that first decade, we saw the portion of white residents jump up by 80%. Every morning, Dasani leaves her grandmothers birthplace to wander the same streets where Joanie grew up, playing double Dutch in the same parks, seeking shade in the same library. Andrea, thank you so much. Talk a little bit about where Dasani is now, her age, what she had to, sort of, come through, and also maybe a little bit about the fact that she was written about in The New York Times, like, might have affected that trajectory. And I don't think she could ever recover from that. I took 14 trips to see her at Hershey. To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. To watch these systems play out in Dasanis life is to glimpse not only their flaws, but the threat they pose to Dasanis system of survival. You find her outside this shelter. It wasn't a safe thing. One in five kids. Where do you first encounter her in the city? All rights reserved. She's a hilarious (LAUGH) person. To kill a mouse is to score a triumph. And I said, "Yes." An interview with Andrea Elliott, author of Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. Right? Invisible Child And that's very clear in the context of her parents here. They think, "All men are created equal," creed is what distinguishes the U.S., what gives it its, sort of, moral force and righteousness in rebelling against the crown. And it really was for that clientele, I believe. And in all these cases, I think, like, you know, there's a duty for a journalist to tell these stories. And so putting that aside, what really changed? Roaches crawl to the ceiling. Why Is This Happening? Then the New York Times published Invisible Child, a series profiling a homeless girl named Dasani. Then the New York Times published Invisible Child, a series profiling a homeless girl named Dasani. They can screech like alley cats, but no one is listening. It never works. Now in her 20s, Dasani became the first in her immediate family to graduate high school, and she enrolled in classes at LaGuardia Community College. And so Dasani went literally from one day to the next from the north shore of Staten Island where she was living in a neighborhood that was very much divided along the lines of gang warfare. How did you feel, you know, about the pipe that's leaking?" And this is a current that runs through this family, very much so, as you can see by the names. I read the book out to the girls. The thumb-suckers first: six-year-old Hada and seven-year-old Maya, who share a small mattress. And by the way, at that time this was one of the richest cities in the world. She could go anywhere. Just a few blocks away are different or, kind of, safer feeling, but maybe alienating also. What happens when trying to escape poverty means separating from your family at 13? The turtle they had snuck into the shelter. Invisible Child Offering a rare look into how homelessness directs the course of a life, New York Times writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Andrea Elliott was allowed to follow Dasani's family for almost 10 years.