A family in Baltimore

Next time some rightwing asshole "hypothesizes" about aborting black babies, next time some Lord-and-Taylor "pro-family" nut rants on about the right kind of family, next time some silver-spoon pontificates about personal responsibility, next time someone whines about having to go to Brown rather than Harvard you will have read this article in the Baltimore Sun and you'll know better.

Iven and Gary were among the 2,289 Baltimore students - 2.6 percent of the total - who were believed to be homeless at some point during the 2004-2005 school year. Of those, 1,049 were listed as having lived in a shelter....

...Gary had created a sanctuary for himself in the front upstairs bedroom, which he shared with his 19-year old cousin, Kevin Braxton. He had paid a guy $50 to run electricity from a utility pole to power the room. He had a mattress on the floor, a recliner, a microwave, a space heater and an iron. Curtains covered the two big windows overlooking Guilford Avenue. "I may not have everything legal, but some people don't have their own house," he said. "You can do what you want to do... have company you want to have."

He pinned up photos of his family, including a discolored shot of his mother in a bright print shirt standing with him as a little boy on a porch.

He turned elsewhere for other necessities. He hauled laundry to a relative's house and showered at the home of his girlfriend, Alexis Lewis, and her mother, who lived a few blocks away.

Without parents around, Iven and Gary found themselves leaning more heavily on the adults in school. Gary especially liked Cheyanne Zahrt, a young science teacher from Nevada who attended all his football games, listened to his complaints and lightheartedly fussed at him when he missed school or didn't do homework. She also invited him along with Iven and other boys to lasagna dinners at her house on Sunday nights.

On the outside, Gary might be the tough kid, but what Zahrt saw was a "caring, respectful and intelligent young man.... I think he knew, and I knew, that if I gave up on Gary, no one else would push him."