I was homeless as a kid. Heres how I survived.

Publish date: 2024-08-21

I recently saw a young girl selling candy on the subway. It brought me back to when I was 9 and sold Skittles on the streets of New York.

I wasn’t very good at it, so I moved on to singing for my supper, hoping songs from the musical “Annie” would charm people into giving me a few bucks so I wouldn’t starve. Behind me, my twin sister sat on the pavement reading, avoiding sneers from strangers. Our single mom stayed home to fight the landlord and whatever demons plagued her for most of her life.

On the sidewalk, many people did next to nothing when they saw us, much like what happens today.

My twin and I hadn’t attended school since first grade, when we first became homeless for a year with our mom. For a time, we slept on cots in a stranger’s spare office. I had no idea by age 10 we would be homeless again and I wouldn’t return to school until age 16.

For a couple of years, we lived in a tenement across from the 59th Street Bridge. We were always hungry, like the mice that skedaddled when we stomped our feet. After New York began the Returnable Container Act in 1983, our mom handed us large plastic bags to pick up cans and kissed us goodbye. I told Mom I loved her.

“Don’t come back until you earn $25,” Mom said.

I liked that she believed in me, even if it was a lot of pressure.

“Listen,” Mom said, as if she sensed my apprehension. “In the 1880s, all the immigrant kids worked in factories to help support their family. You’re no different.”

Mom’s ultra-light-blue eyes were sunken from exhaustion, and her Midwestern accent was thicker when she was tired. She had been up all night, typing up Bible verses for us to memorize. Mom no longer worked. She said she had removed too many bedpans as a nurse, cleaned enough toilets as a maid and painted her last T-shirts to peddle on the streets. Her new job would be to home-school us. Except it didn’t pay, and she spent hours ranting about sinners and the horrible world. We were featured in newspaper stories for our hard luck.

All I wanted to do was play Barbie and practice my violin, which our local music school had given us with need-based scholarships and once-a-week private lessons.

When our mom suggested I busk with my violin on Fifth Avenue, across from Trump Tower, I happily agreed. It beat picking through the trash bins to retrieve a 5-cent can. Before we put our coats on, our mother kissed us again and told us not to tell anyone that we didn’t attend school.

“If the authorities find out, you’ll be put into separate orphanages. You’ll never see each other again,” Mom warned.

When we crossed the busy intersection, I held my twin’s hand even tighter. On 57th Street, kids my age wore warm scarves and their parents carried FAO Schwarz toy store bags.

I carefully placed my violin case on the sidewalk, opened it and propped up a cardboard sign I had written in crayon: Need Money for Camp. It was a lie, but I didn’t want to appear destitute.

My bow glided across the strings as the cold wind stung my fingers. Businessmen rushed by and tourists took photos of me. No one dropped a dime into my case. I repeated “Clair de Lune,” hoping this time I’d play it perfectly.

An older man exited a large black car and walked over. I glanced behind me at my twin sitting on the cold marble of a storefront. Her eyes were still downcast and buried in a book.

“Play me your best song,” he commanded.

I was embarrassed to admit I only knew one song by memory and began again. My fingers tingled from the cold, but magically, the notes flowed.

As I neared the end of the song, a huge smile spread across the man’s wrinkled skin. I finished the piece and he clapped loudly, attracting even more attention for me. I too beamed, unaware until that moment how much I wanted to be seen. A small crowd gathered, tossing coins and dollar bills into my case.

I was no longer ashamed.

“Why are you here? On the street?” he said in a voice barely audible above the honking taxis and police sirens. He took a step closer to me. His breath smelled like peppermint candy. I inched back.

No one had ever asked me this. I looked down at my homemade sign that was about to blow away. I had lost so many things: my home, my education, my father. I remembered Mom’s warning not to tell. I didn’t want to lose my twin because I told the truth. But a voice deep inside of me didn’t always believe my mom’s words.

“I’m hungry,” I blurted out, moving my numb fingers around the neck of the violin. I was tired of pretending that I was a plucky kid trying to earn a few bucks, when what my family needed was to be saved, investigated. We needed to be in school. We needed a stable home. We needed food.

The man then rolled something in his hands and handed it to me.

“Don’t look at it until I’m gone,” the man said.

I nodded. He walked back to his car.

“What was that all about?” my twin asked, earmarking her book.

I unrolled the money. It was a hundred-dollar bill. I had never held that much cash. It wasn’t enough to grant me an education or pay the rent, but we could eat. I continued the cycle of busking until I was 15 and men began to leer at me and my curves.

When Mom applied for welfare, Child Protective Services investigated my family, but I believe because we were charismatic and U.S. citizens, nothing came of it. For years, we slipped through the cracks of government bureaucracy. At age 18, we signed up for GED classes with fellow high school dropouts, young pregnant women and immigrants. About a month later, we earned our high school equivalency degree.

By the time I reached my 20s, I was a wreck. I couldn’t hold down a restaurant job because I didn’t know basic math and got fired from seven different places. The only gig I could do well was pass hors d’oeuvres as a catering waiter. At age 30, a woman whom I had met when we were homeless kids introduced me to Zack, whom I’d later marry, proving that all the trauma I experienced didn’t happen to me — it happened for me.

After a fourth attempt at college, at age 32, I qualified for Pell Grants and finally earned my degree. I landed a job at a literary agency and became a mentor for at-risk teens at Girls Write Now.

It wasn’t easy. Early poverty gets its claws into you and directs your actions for the rest of your life. I battled bulimia when I finally could afford food and chain-smoked to get rid of the weight. It took years to finally quit both.

The one thing that brought me genuine happiness, that eased the flashbacks and pain, was becoming a writer and a mother. A few years into my marriage to Zack, we welcomed Daisy into the world, and five years later, Clover. Just a few weeks ago, Mom died, leaving me with a range of emotions, including sadness and some regret.

I was thinking about her the other day on the subway when a girl with a basket slung across her shoulders stopped in front of Clover and me. My daughter, now 8, is the same age I was when I began busking.

“Chocolate?” the girl asked, sweetly.

Clover handed the girl a dollar that she had saved in her pocket since her last birthday.

I felt proud that I was raising an empathic person who reminded me how privileged it is for us to be together and to be on the other side of poverty.

Reaching into my wallet, I gave the girl $5. It was the only cash I had on me.

If the state hasn’t yet figured out how to help others in need, it was up to us.

Heather Kristin has mentored at Girls Write Now for 10 years and is writing a memoir entitled “The Stand-In: On Loving and Leaving Sex and the City.” She has been interviewed by Oprah and written for Glamour, Salon and Huffpost.

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I was homeless as a kid. Heres how I survived.