You move so seamlessly through different spaces that it’s easy to forget that each new institution came with its own barriers to access that Elliott managed to surmount. Elliott spent eight years working on the book, following Dasani and her family virtually everywhere: at shelters, schools, courts, welfare offices, therapy sessions, parties. So, what happened to Dasani? Elliott picks up the story in “ Invisible Child,” a book that goes well beyond her original reporting in both journalistic excellence and depth of insight. Elliott provided them with a cellphone and video cameras to document their living conditions and eventually sneaked into Auburn herself, climbing through a fire escape. That’s where she met Chanel, Dasani and the rest of the family. So Andrea Elliott, an investigative reporter at The Times, stationed herself outside of the “heavily guarded” shelter, trying to talk to homeless mothers. The staff failed to notify the police of sexual assaults.Īuburn was supported by public funds, but neither the public nor the press was allowed inside. Kids swiped janitors’ bleach bottles to scrub common bathrooms that went uncleaned. The shelter’s fire alarm system was inoperable the heat cut off in the winter and the family daily battled mice and roaches. Her family - Chanel and her husband, Supreme, along with their eight children - lived in a single room at Auburn, their clothes and mattresses forming a helter-skelter patchwork over the linoleum floor. Even her formidable school principal called her a “precocious little button” and believed her potential to be limitless.ĭasani’s charm contrasted brutally with her degrading and dangerous surroundings. At home, she looked after her siblings, changing diapers and making sandwiches, giving the other children the middle pieces of the loaf and taking the ends for herself. Dasani did back flips at bus stops and could best the boys in a pull-up contest. She was named after the bottled water her mother would have never spent good money on, just as Chanel, Dasani’s mother, was named for the posh French perfume. Several years ago, readers of this paper got to meet one, an 11-year-old Black girl with an unforgettable name: Dasani.įor five straight days in December 2013, the front page of The New York Times focused on a child who lived in the Auburn Family Residence, a homeless shelter in Brooklyn. INVISIBLE CHILD Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City By Andrea Elliottīest we can tell, there are 1.38 million homeless schoolchildren in the United States.

Limitless movie full online