Looking Beyond Life in a Homeless Shelter With 4 Children – The New York Times

I never left my family, she said. I did what I thought was best at the time.

In Florida, she got a job and saved money. About a year later, she returned to New York, where she works as a dispatcher for a company that rents out exotic cars.

In the aftermath of Ms. Johnss departure, Mr. Rodriguez scrambled.

For a time, he lived in the apartment of an aunt, he and the children sharing a large bed. One on each leg thats how I used to sleep, he said.

Mr. Rodriguez and his children lived in shelters in Brooklyn and Queens before settling in one in the Bronx for the past year. The disruptions were hard on the children, now 3, 5, 7 and 8, who were uprooted from one school to another, he said.

I was jumping from place to place, Mr. Rodriguez said. If its not this, its this. If its not this, its that. The noise doesnt stop.

He had worked at a senior center in Washington Heights, where he drove members to City Island, Yankee Stadium and area casinos, but was laid off when it reduced staff. He also has worked as a driver for a trucking company and a painter.

When he was 19, he earned his high school equivalency diploma in Florida. In New York, Mr. Rodriguez studied business for a year at Boricua College and earned an associate degree in criminal justice at Berkeley College in Manhattan.

He said his interest in criminal justice sprang from a lifelong desire to help people. Helping is just a thrill, he said.

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Looking Beyond Life in a Homeless Shelter With 4 Children - The New York Times