Not long ago I was on my way into a subway station in Washington DC, right at the bottom of Capitol Hill. As I rode down the escalator, I noticed a small group huddled around a trash can in the corner of the entry. Between them was one of those Styrofoam to-go boxes, balanced precariously on the rim of the can. A young boy was eating from the tray, his eyes barely level with box, standing in the shadow of his mother, who was feeding an even smaller child in her arms. It didn’t take long to figure out why this little family was eating out of a single box standing around a trashcan, when there was a food court and tables and chairs inside. This mother was feeding her children with what she’d dug out of the garbage.
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