Response to Invisible Child

The article titled “Invisible Child” from the NY Times by Andrea Elliott, allowed us to travel through world and lifestyle of a little girl named Dasani. She lives in the Auburn Family Residence, which is a run-down homeless shelter in Fort Greene. This place holds many different families in order to prevent them from being out on the streets. While one may think it would be better for them to live in this shelter, with the conditions going on in there it may be no different than being out on the streets. Her life within that shelter, is a dystopia on its own. Every corner she turns there is something wrong. She shares a single room amongst her parents as well seven other children. One can only imagine how nearly impossible it is live in that manner. She has to be constantly on guard with her surroundings especially since there are other people living in that shelter, some which are sexual predators. According to the article “It is a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets…” (NY Times). With so many people living in such a tight place it makes things highly unsanitary and unbearable to even be in.

            Despite the inhumane conditions that Dasani had her parents played an important role in where she is at now. Her parents were drug addicts, already sets them and their entire family up for disaster. Money is really tight for them especially since both parents are out of a job so they have to rely on whatever the government provides for them. This adds even more pressure to Dasani because she has to play the “parent” role to take care of her younger siblings. Could you imagine an 11 year old having to take care and protect herself and her younger siblings? It is devastating being born into such a lifestyle and there is not much Dasani could do especially since she is so little. What makes things even more complex is the gentrification that is occurring within that neighborhood. All the changes, from the buildings, and the type of people living there, it doesn’t make things any easier for those that are evacuated out of their homes due to all these new changes.

            While reading through this article, you would expect this story to come out from a novel or book, but these are things that are occurring in real life. This represents dystopian qualities where the government and staff workers of the Auburn resident are the ones in charge of how things should run, but the people living there just have no choice than to abide by the rules. There are many people that don’t deserve this life but get warped into due to unforeseen predicaments, like being born into a poor family. It is sad that these type of things occur around us and some people aren’t even aware of people suffering in such manner. Even though they are supposedly being taken care of by the government, they are still suffering.