This Is All I Got

A New Mother's Search for Home

By: Lauren Sandler

Narrated by: Lauren Sandler

A New York Times Notable Book

From an award-winning journalist, a poignant and gripping immersion in the life of a young, homeless single mother amid her quest to find stability and shelter in the richest city in America

Long-Listed for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

• “Riveting . . . a remarkable feat of reporting.”—The New York Times

Camila is 22 years old and a new mother. She has no family to rely on, no partner, and no home. Despite her intelligence and determination, the odds are firmly stacked against her. In this extraordinary work of literary reportage, Lauren Sandler chronicles a year in Camila’s life—from the birth of her son to his first birthday—as she navigates the labyrinth of poverty and homelessness in New York City. In her attempts to secure a safe place to raise her son and find a measure of freedom in her life, Camila copes with dashed dreams, failed relationships, the desolation of abandonment, and miles of red tape with grit, humor, and uncanny resilience.

Every day, more than 45 million Americans attempt to survive below the poverty line. Every night, nearly 60,000 people sleep in New York City-run shelters, 40 percent of them children. In This Is All I Got, Sandler brings this deeply personal issue to life, vividly depicting one woman's hope and despair and her steadfast determination to change her life despite the myriad setbacks she encounters.

This Is All I Got is a rare feat of reporting and a dramatic story of survival. Sandler’s candid and revealing account also exposes the murky boundaries between a journalist and her subject when it becomes impossible to remain a dispassionate observer. She has crafted a powerful and unforgettable indictment of a system that is often indifferent to the needs of those it serves, and that sometimes seems designed to fail.

Praise for This Is All I Got

“A rich, sociologically valuable work that’s more gripping, and more devastating, than fiction.” (Booklist)

“Vivid, heartbreaking.... Readers will be moved by this harrowing and impassioned call for change.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A closely observed chronicle...Sandler displays her journalistic talent by unerringly presenting this dire situation.... An impressive blend of dispassionate reporting, pungent condemnation of public welfare, and gritty humanity.” (Kirkus Reviews)

©2020 Lauren Sandler (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Too few journalists put the time in to allow the working poor and homeless to be heard, speaking clearly about their pitfalls and occasional triumphs, in their own words. Sandler has achieved this with skill." (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America)

“A remarkable feat of reporting . . . Sandler’s such a keen observer, her writing so clear-eyed. . . . This Is All I Got is a testament to the bigness of the small story, to the power of intimate narratives to speak to something much larger.”—The New York Times

“Meticulously crafted and brilliantly reported, Lauren Sandler’s This Is All I Got exposes the Kafkaesque cruelties of America’s disintegrating social safety net. It is a gut punch of a narrative, an electrifying summons to policy action, and an instant classic.”—Dan-el Padilla Peralta, associate professor of classics, Princeton, and author of Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League

vote!

heartbreaking and eye opening! Got to fix the system and stop this tragic waste of human potential

Intriguing story

Going through a year with this author was very interesting and very frustrating. Most of us know little about the system, especially in NYC or what single moms who are trying to better themselves go through.

Great

This story is one of the millions of stories that everyday people need to hear. I hope the readers really understand the heartbreak of navigating the welfare system while dealing with everyday pressure and heartache. This is why people protest the current welfare system because reality is worse than fiction.

Illuminating a big problem with personal story

This book is so gripping, minutely documented, and a great example of how a personal story can illuminate a problem better than any statistic, no matter how shocking. Lauren Sandler tells the main character's story with integrity, compassion, love, and truth. Thank you for your work, Lauren, to tell Camilla's story and show just how broken our social systems are and why they must change.

look at, to look after

Lauren Sandler is a remarkable writer and her courage in confronting the harsh reality of poverty-even harsher through the lens of of a single mother-is a great service to anyone thinking deeply about issues of poverty, child care, education, housing justice, family support, and community building. I hope everyone reading/listening to this book comes out of it asking some version of the question: What is mine to do?

Not follow the money; follow the people

This is an unbelievable story. No one should have to go through what Camilla goes through. I found myself taking up with every episode and found the entire journey really compelling

The Story We Need To Hear

This book is simply of dire importance and a brilliant feat. We need to all read this, especially now. Hats off.

Truly a wonderful book

Should be required reading for all those who say, "They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Extremely well-written and articulated. Thank you, Lauren, for all your fine reporting and for directly stating what needs to be understood about poverty and homelessness in the US. I hope someday you can update us on Camila's progress.

Who cares? No one evidently.

Heartbreaking in its specificity and cruel delineation of a bureaucratic nightmare that crushes the poor while pandering to the greedy excesses of the .01% that feeds on the labor of those beneath them. A tale of uncaring societal rot that predicts the demise of our founders American dream of liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness for all. A sad, sad tale told well.

sad but true and complex

A great job showing the sadness and complexity of our welfare system in the age of inequality