Kingston, New York. The noises of children running about the family’s three-bedroom apartment used to greet Melissa Krajewski when she returned from her work as a home health care. On the weekends, she would watch her husband and son play football and bake with her two daughters.
She describes her everyday, middle-class life as if it were a faraway recollection. After their rent increased and they were unable to find another apartment they could afford, Krajewski and her two girls have been staying in a cheap motel room in Kingston, New York, a small town surrounded by the Hudson Valley’s undulating mountains, for almost a year.
These days, they use a microwave or tiny toaster oven to prepare their meals, keep their food in a compact refrigerator without a functional freezer, and use the dresser as a pantry. Her 10-year-old daughter sleeps in the room, which has two full-size beds and a crib nestled in the corner. A Barbie dollhouse next to the bathroom, a dozen well-worn plush animals along the beds, two makeshift vanities where her 13-year-old daughter maintains a small box of cosmetics, and a mirror adorned with pictures are among the girl’s few remaining belongings.
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