So, at the age of 16, with her 3-month old baby in the next room she took pills, lots of pills, enough to make her blind and deaf to the situation. Discovered, she was taken to the hospital and pumped out.

When I took it I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't see anything. They took me to this hospital, pump me out. My brother came in and I didn't know who I were talking to. He said "I came to see if you' re not going home with us, are you going home to your boy- friend's?” And the counselor said, "We'll get you a nice place and you can stay, you and your daughter, and you can go back to school." But I love my boyfriend! And if I go back home, my father doesn't talk to me, my brother doesn't talk to me. I won't be able to go nowhere. It's going to be worse. And I said, “I'll go back to my boyfriend's.”

And when I went back my mother-in- law is yelling at him saying I'm no good and I end up lying in bed for one week. And my mother-in-law's sending me up something to eat, she's asking "how're you doing?" and she's looking at the baby.

We ended up finding rat poison and the City of Boston was coming in and checking with me and talking with me and taking the case to court. I ended up being thrown out of there and all my stuffs in the basement. So I got no place to go. I went down to Housing to see if they'd help me out down there. I went to my sister's, but she's over- crowded. So I went down to Welfare, see if they could help me, but they said they could do nothing. And I'm trying to go to school, get an education, go to training. I got two kids to take care of and trying to get an apartment.²

One child is 3 years old, the other, 9 months. She has been with her boyfriend for 5 years. During her second pregnancy, she considered an abortion. Lying about her age, she managed to get the money, tests, counselling and to arrive at the appointment But at the last minute, she changed her mind and walked out. She freely admits the love she has for both her children; the elder has severe problems. A confused child at 15, three years later Lucia has struggled into adulthood.

Lourdes, also 19, with a 20-month old son, is looking for permanent housing. Currently she lives in a shelter. She loves being a mother, and though she assumed she would finish high school and get a job, she knew, when she fell in love, it was time to "wake up and smell the coffee." The boy's father is long gone, and she does not miss him. Since her son was 3 1/ 2 months old, she been involved with another man, one who is "there when I need diapers in the middle of the night, when I have to run to the hospital, when I have a headache. He's the one who helps me to provide for my son."

Born to a wealthy family on the tiny island of Cape Verde, Lourdes came to the United States when she was 10. Now she is the child of two cultures, one inherited from the tightly-knit Cape Verdean community in Boston, the other from the larger Black American community of which she is also a member. She went to a post-bussing Black American school; she believes that America is a free country where the government leaves people alone and where you can get what you want And she is outspoken:

The lady that works [in the shelter] where I'm staying at, she's always complaining how us Cape Verdeans should stick with Cape Verdeans and I cuss her out 'cause she says to me that I'm beginning to have black people's attitudes. I think I have the right to cuss her out so I cussed her out and she gave me a written warning. And told her "I'm going to sign this warning because you's supposed to be a counselor, and if you want to be a counselor you have to know how to communicate, know how to deal with people, know how to talk. You got to work here with a bunch of us, and if we wasn't homeless you wouldn't be sitting at this desk trying to run our life. And she's always complaining how we should take better care of our kids and we should watch our kids and I told her, I said, “Look, I'm tired of you talking to me like this, because I'm doing it. If you want to talk to me you're going to sit down like a lady and talk to me. I might be young but I'm not stupid. Talk to me like I'm human and I'll talk to you like you're human." And then she got mad because I turned around and said. "Look, you're so much worrying about how we take care of our kids. You leave your son with someone all day from 7 to 2 and then you work from 3 to 11. Do you ever see your kids? How do you ever give your kids love? You might be out there trying to make a dollar but you're not worrying about your kids."

I told her "You can talk about me all you want but don't get off the line with me telling me how to run my kids. Don't tell me who to hang around with cause you're just as black as anybody I know.”

Lourdes' mother brought all her 11 children here from Cape Verde: first one half, while the others stayed back with the maid, and then the rest. In Boston, she set up shop. The children all got schooling and jobs. Lourdes was an A and B student at school; her reading and class level are both 9th grade. Now Lourdes puts her child first; she makes sure that he is settled before all else. By joining the program, she is trying to do two things at once, but she puts housing first, and education second. She has a daily agenda as long as her arm, and she uses the structure the P.P.T. provides in order to get done what needs doing. She rarely manages the full 12 hours attendance required a week, but she does use the childcare, transportation, health and counselling services, education and training the program provides.

Pam is 20 and her daughter is 18 months. Recently she has found an apartment and is beginning to catch up with her bills, but before there were months and months of moving from shelter to shelter, hostel to hostel. She has been through a lot. When she was two, her 17 year-old-brother was killed by the police in a case of mistaken identity. When she was 13, her mother died of cancer.