Dasani and what came after
In December 2013, Michael Bloomberg was preparing to leave office basking in the glow of, as he saw it, a hugely successful mayoralty. Then the New York Times published “Invisible Child,” a series profiling a homeless girl named Dasani. Dasani’s experiences with decrepit shelter conditions and deep poverty undercut the Bloomberg message of a resurgent city.
It also invigorated and infuriated New York’s progressive politicians. Then Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio vowed “We must get to work on this right away. We can’t let children of this city like Dasani down.” On Jan. 1, 2014, inauguration day, Dasani herself held the Bible on which Letitia James was sworn in as public advocate. Through ritual and rhetoric, the incoming ruling class pledged a new era for New York’s disadvantaged.
New York is again poised to inaugurate a new mayor and Andrea Elliott, author of the Times series, has published a book-length follow-up. Also titled “Invisible Child,” Elliott’s new book examines whether New York’s liberals made good on those promises from nearly eight years ago. In addition, it shows how a debate about class has morphed into one about race and how much can go wrong even after a family leaves homelessness.
Ten months after the original series ran, Dasani’s mother secured a federal Section 8 rental voucher. She, her husband and their eight children moved out of the shelter system for a duplex unit in Staten Island’s Stapleton neighborhood.
They did not flourish. Dasani’s parents continued to struggle with drug addiction and chronic unemployment. The children continued to struggle in school and faced emotional problems of mounting seriousness and violence.
The chaos at home drew the attention of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). While the Bloomberg Department of Homeless Services played the villain eight years ago, “Invisible Child” the book casts ACS in that role. All the children are placed in foster care.
The persistence of homelessness humbled de Blasio, who last week identified it as his greatest disappointment as mayor. The shelter numbers have ticked down of late, but one question raised by “Invisible Child” is how should we measure success in homelessness policy?
During fiscal year 2015, 4,526 families with children other than Dasani’s moved out of shelter via a housing subsidy. By DHS’ standards, every one of these cases was a policy win. Both locally and at the national level, homelessness advocates place top priority on expanding subsidies.
But “Invisible Child” shows the limits of a purely housing-oriented solution to homelessness. Giving people a break on their rent gives them a break on their rent. It doesn’t cure their drug addiction, treat their mental illness or — if those and other such problems remain unaddressed — protect them from losing their children.
The experience of family poverty under de Blasio looks very similar to what it did under Bloomberg, but the terms of debate have changed. The 2013 Times series’ emphasis on class in gentrified New York is eclipsed, in the book, by stronger emphasis on race, particularly with respect to the child welfare system. By the end of the book, Dasani’s mother has joined a “Black Family Lives Matter” group. Shifting most of the blame from inequality to racism mirrors trends in public debate under de Blasio, who took office in an era when the left’s leading public intellectual was French economist Thomas Piketty (remember him?). Now, it’s Ibram X. Kendi.
In the attention to detail that a book provides in more than 500 pages of text, sweeping explanations for poverty’s persistence begin to break down. Elliott profiles many instances, drawn from eight years of reporting, of programs operating appropriately. Readers meet many dedicated public servants working in the schools, social services and criminal justice systems.
They are generally Black or Hispanic, working-class, and have abundant personal experience with adversity. Not only are their hearts in the right place, but they are often competent and lenient. A cop reported a pistol as a BB gun. A school principal encouraged Dasani to apply for a prestigious boarding school for disadvantaged kids, where she was accepted.
Welfare reform moved Dasani’s formerly drug-addicted grandmother into a job with the MTA. She died young, at the age of 54, but left Dasani’s family an inheritance of $49,000. A teacher at Dasani’s school fell into homelessness. Her stay in the much-maligned, but also rent-free, shelter system allowed her to save up enough to buy an apartment and thus “never be someone’s tenant again.” Though Dasani’s own experience at the boarding school did not end well, her best friend at the school, from a similar background, graduated and enrolled at Temple University to study construction engineering.
In short, the closer we examine poverty and government’s response to it, the more complicated everything seems, because much seems to be going right even while so much more continues to go wrong.