Disheartening is a word one could use to describe how Tank felt while he slept in the abandoned buildings of Queens, New York. It’s very likely that the walls were laced with intricate spiderwebs and housing various mold spores, but his group, the handful of youth that was crouching there, could not even afford to focus on these simpler unpleasantries when there were much graver issues to attend to. The very floorboards that they walked on were a safety hazard, as they creaked and snapped beneath their feet. One of Tank’s friends was unfortunate enough to break through a board and have his leg slashed open. Petrified at the possibility of people finding their hideout and then being forced into a loathsome shelter, the group closed the wound themselves prior to bringing “him out into the street before [they] called the ambulance.” This was life for Tank now. …show more content…
For so many youth in America, this has lamentably become a more commonplace tale as the rate of youth homelessness increases. Children are winding up sleeping on the streets due to various factors such as homophobia, for example in Tank’s case, as well as economic hardships. The tragedy is that there are not enough helping hands for these adolescents. Tank was lucky enough that, through friendship, he managed to get his life back on track, but many of these young vagrants are not so