‘This is Beautiful’: After 16 Months in a Shelter, New York Family Finds a Home

In late December, three days after Christmas, Shakira Crawford left her three children with her neighbor at a homeless shelter in East New York and rushed into the night to look at an apartment.

“I’m excited,” she said, exuding her usual cheerfulness, despite the near-freezing temperature.

Crawford, 40, spent most of 2015 looking for a way out of a homeless shelter with a $1,500 subsidy from the city. She works full time as a lobby attendant at a Midtown hotel, and she makes $17,000 a year. She got in touch with 60 brokers, but never got a lease.