New Orleans is Home to 65-year-old Eva and 4-year-old Pip

I was born and raised here in New Orleans and I've lived here my whole life, but never thought I'd end up homeless on the streets.

Morning settles over New Orleans

Life a warm, damp homemade quilt, heavy with the smell of chicory coffee and river mist, Eva stirs, rubbing her eyes to wake up.

“Pip?” she whispers, voice rough from the night. You alright this morning, Baby?

A tiny nose pokes out from the gap in her coat followed by two anxious brown eyes. Pip lets out a soft whine and a little huff of warm breath.

“There you are,” she says, laughing under her breath. “Thought you done run off with some rich lady already.”

Pip shifts closer, all bone and heartbeat, part chihuahua part Vice. Eva opens her coat just enough to let him taste the morning air: powdered sugar from beignets, bacon frying somewhere, and the deep, dark smell of coffee

“Smell that?” she asked him. “That's New Orleans sayin’ good mornin’ to us. Y'all better appreciate it.”

The quarter yawns awake around them. A man pushes a broom over cracked pavement humming a hymn under his breath. A saxophone tests the air with a few wandering notes. A street car clanks past in the distance, the sound rolling over the roofs like thunder that forgot to be scary.

Eva didn't plan to end up on the street. Few people do. She once worked in a diner off Canal Street flipping beignets and humming to the radio. After a hurricane season that never seemed to end, the diner closed, and the small apartment she rented went with it. There were shelters, Eva could have chosen, but none would allow her dog to stay. And leaving pimp? It wasn't an option: he's the only family she has.

Little 4-year -old Pip who is as smart as a whip, keeps Eva moving. He watches over her while she sleeps, and gives her unconditional love.

They've built a kind of safe home among the cracks. Eva's corner is tidy, a milk crate turned into a side table, and a vase with paper flowers someone brought her last Mardi Gras. She knows the rhythm of the quarter better than most. When the street cars clatter by, when the tourists pass, she smiles sometimes holding a cardboard sign that simply says, “ we're still here.”

Still, there are hard days. The rain comes down in sheets that know no mercy, and sometimes the police move her along before dawn. Eva is use to this; she done it so many times before.

When I asked her once what keeps her hopeful she looks toward the river; “that sound, she said, and the water, the fairies, the laughter from the levee at sunset.

Someday, I hope to find a little place for me and Pip to stay where it’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter, but in the meantime we’re doing just fine.

Thanks for reading!

Carol