For months, Karian had tried to make it on her own in New York without the help of specialized child care centers. After the birth of her second daughter, she was diagnosed with postpartum depression, major depressive disorder and anxiety. A single mother who had moved from Boston to New York about 13 years ago, she often spent days at a time on the couch, unable to do more than handle the basics for her daughters.

“I wasn’t taking care of myself,” she said softly on a recent afternoon. “I was not really present.” The Hechinger Report is not publishing her last name to protect her privacy.

Karian’s mother urged her to move back home to the Boston area and offered to house her and her daughters temporarily. She started working the night shift at a fast food restaurant to save up for her own place while her mother and sister watched her children.

But in a city where fast food wages aren’t enough to pay the rent, her efforts felt futile. And then, a month after moving in with her family, her mother’s landlord told her the apartment was overcrowded and she had to leave. Karian and her girls, then 7 years old and 8 months old, moved into a homeless shelter, where her depression and anxiety worsened.

Read the full article about infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness by Jackie Mader at The Hechinger Report.