It would be a while before he described his years scraping by in New York. They ran through his mind on a loop, but he divulged them to no one, certainly not this new acquaintance, and instead shared his story in broad strokes - he was born in Hong Kong and had grown up in New York and was new to being homeless. Chin possessed little more than his closely guarded secrets, including a criminal record that haunted him. “But we are the two Chinese people in the shelter, so we talk.” “At the beginning, I can’t say I liked him,” he said. Chin sensed that if they had met just a few years earlier, they would have had very little in common. Chin sized him up with an expert eye: an immigrant, most likely from Fujian Province no family, no English, no documents. The man was skinny, his ill-fitting clothes hanging loosely on his frame.
On that evening in 2012 in the Barbara Kleiman Residence in East Williamsburg, he saw only one other Chinese person in the room. Chin had to learn his city anew, and now - he could still hardly believe it - as a homeless person. A college graduate and former civil servant, Mr.
The Chinatown restaurants he frequented with his wife and daughter, the elementary school drop-off routine, the friendly neighbors in Queens - these had been the trappings of a middle-class life that once seemed secure. Chin was alone, stewing in anger and shame over all he had lost and how low he had fallen. On his first night at the Brooklyn homeless shelter, Tin Chin met his best friend.Įstranged from his family, Mr.
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