PROVIDENCE – It’s 10:10 on a bitterly cold Tuesday morning and Shanelle Saraceno is already worrying about the night ahead.
“I have no clue where we’re going tonight ,” Saraceno said minutes after stepping off a bus at Kennedy Plaza with her boyfriend, Dylan Ballou. All their possessions fit into three Stop & Shop grocery bags.
Saraceno, 29, is six months pregnant and desperate. She and Ballou had been sleeping in a tent near the Apex building in Pawtucket – that is, until someone stole their tent and blankets two weeks ago. They try to keep each other warm, but it doesn’t always work.
“We’re literally sleeping on cement,” she said.
First winter outside
This has been Saraceno’s plight since she was evicted by the Providence Housing Authority last March after, she says, an ex-boyfriend broke the glass on the oven door after getting into a fight. Every night since, she hasn’t known where she will sleep.
“I’m pregnant. I don’t think I can do another night like this. I’ll jump in the Pawtucket River,” Saraceno said the next day, having spending yet another night frigid on the street.