In November 2017, less than a week before Thanksgiving, Tonia Lovell picked up her toddler, Eliana, from daycare in the early evening and returned to the house where she was staying with her brother in Brooklyn.
The living situation was not ideal, and Lovell had tried twice to get into a family shelter in the Bronx. The city’s Department of Homeless Services rejected her application, likely because she did, in fact, have a roof over her head.