In Boston, fight to end homelessness moves from street corner to classroom

This week, Sashanna Stewart and her second-grade daughter, Saniyah Henry, have something they’ve never had: their own bedrooms.

Ms. Stewart works as a housekeeper for Massachusetts General Hospital, making $21 an hour. But as a single mother, she’s never made enough to afford the $2,500 a month on average for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston. Since Saniyah was born in 2009, they have lived in one room of her mother’s first-floor walkup in Roxbury, a neighborhood south of Boston. Stewart says she signed up for city housing in 2010, but officials told her she made too much money and would likely stay on the waitlist.

“Some people don’t understand that you can still have a job and be homeless,” says Stewart, leaning on the arm of her mother’s couch before the move. “People think you choose to be homeless, but it’s not a

Massachusetts as an epicenterCommunicating about resourcesTeachers' role Moving forward