Andrea Elliott: Family Homelessness in the US

Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute

Andrea Elliot’s 2022 Pulitzer winning book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, follows eight dramatic years in the life of a young woman named Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn’s gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As she grows up, moving with her tight-knit family from shelter to shelter, this story goes back to trace the passage of Dasani’s ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. By the time she comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis is exploding as the chasm deepens between rich and poor.
Dasani’s family have become emblematic of one of America’s most wicked problems: homelessness. Andrea Elliott's Pulitzer Prize winning story is a powerful expose on just how the disparity between those with wealth, and power, and those without, is rapidly growing.

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