Carole was able to sell one or two of her poems to a magazine.  She worked at entry-level jobs, in factories, soup kitchens, and restaurants.  Although continuously working, she did not ever earn enough to pay rent for an apartment. She remained homeless for 12 years. She is no longer homeless: "They get you a room," the "they" being a social service agency, whose name she could not remember.  "it is a hotel, and it is very dirty."

Carole never married and has no children.  She lost touch with her brother about 15 years ago.  He moved somewhere in the South because he too was homeless and he could not tolerate the New York winters.  She is still food insecure.  She used to shop for herself and cook on a single burner electric hotplate in the hotel.  However, because of her cancer in her leg, she can not stand for long.

I saw Carole sitting on a bench on a cold sunny New York winter day.  I sat down and asked how she was doing.  She immediately started telling me how her left leg was swollen because of the cancer treatment she was getting.  She never identified what kind of cancer, despite my asking twice.

Carole is 87 years old, born and raised in the Bronx.  She lived with her parents and brother when much of the area was still farmland. Sometimes, she and her brother would go to one of the farms, take a couple of eggs and run home.  She had wanted to be a poet. She left home to live in lofts in abandoned factory buildings in lower Manhattan. Life was tough.  She was a squatter and often did not have enough money for food.  She lived a marginal lifestyle, with a community of squatter artists, not paying rent, fighting with the building owners and police who were trying to evict them.  She eventually left to live with a man in an SRO (single room occupancy.)  When that relationship ended after 15 years, she was homeless.