Award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about his first 11 years growing up homeless in and around NYC and his subsequent years in foster care. For David and his two siblings, their mother’s battle with paranoid schizophrenia brings with it poverty and instability. When he is placed in foster care, it feels at first like salvation but soon proves to be just as unsafe for him, his burgeoning homosexuality an easy target for others’ cruelty. In the face of this deprivation and abuse, he harnesses an inner grit to escape the all-too-familiar outcome for a kid like him. He finds hope and opportunity in libraries, schools, and the occasional kind-hearted adult. Through hard work and unwavering resolve, he is able to get a scholarship to Vassar College, his first step out of poverty. He later graduates from UCLA Law with a vision of changing the laws that affect children in poverty. He was recognized by President Obama as an American Champion of Change.