1985 - Cincinnati, Ohio, USA: Girl gives younger boy a cigarette in Lower Price Hill, a neighborhood of poor whites from Kentucky and West Virginia.

1985 - Chicago, Illinois, USA: 10-year-old Lafayette in the Henry Horner Projects, a public housing project on the west side. Lafayette watched two people gunned down as warring gangs fight for control of buildings, including a young girl, who was shot as she jumped rope. "I'm scared to sleep by myself," he says. Like Lafayette more than half of the childrten in the projects live in female-headed households. Lafayette's mom, La Joe feeds and clothes her eight children on $556 a month in welfare and $380 in food stamps.

1985 - El Paso, Texas, USA: Sylvia irons while her son bathes in a metal tub. They have no running water. Juan and Sylvia purchased a lot in a suburban sub-development to escape inner city problems only to discover the water and sewage lines promised by the devloper would not be put in.

1985 - Chicago, Illinois, USA: L-R: 16-year-old Lucy, 11-year-old Edward, and 12-year-old Edgar sleep on a bed they share. Their father, Leopoldo has been unable to find work because of his poor English and his physical disabilities, including the loss of four fingers on his right hand. The family of 14 gets by on $700 a month from welfare - more than hoalf of which is needed to pay rent fro their five-room apartment in Wicker Park - and $500 in food stamps. The children work at neighborhood carnivals to being in extra cash. Edgar is often late for school or misses it altogether because he works at late night street fairs.

1984 - Anaheim, Orange County, California, USA: Jack’s friend points a cocked gun he takes to school to "protect myself from the gangs" at him, The friend said the gun was not loaded. Jack is the son of Mexican immigrants who work three jobs at Disneyland motels so he and his siblings could get a good education and have a better life. Jack is in a gang.

April 2, 1992 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: 12-year-old Kevin's family view his body at his funeral in St. Phillip’s Baptist Church in North Philadelphia. Kevin was shot at 11:25 pm on March 25, 1992, while on the the roof of a building with friends. He died hours later. His minister said, “...young black males are an endangered species. They ought to be in the National Geographic.”

1985 - Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA: A church gave David and Kay enough money to stay in a motel with their children for a weekend. Homeless, this family’s precarious day to day existence frays their relationship and they quarrel, often in front of the children, who have no place else to go.

1984 - New York, New York, USA: 10-year-old Warnaqui and his younger sister look at toys in the window of a toy store during the Christmas season. The children live with their mother in a room at the Martinique Hotel, a hotel where the City places homeless families. They became homeless when their landlord cut heat and other services forcing them out of their home, so he could raise the rent in their gentrified neighborhood.

1984 - Michigan City, Indiana, USA: Unemployed steel worker, Fred, suffers a breakdown at 2 AM during Christmas season. Fred's son 14-year-old Michael is at left. He got dressed so he and his mom could drive Fred to a clinic. Fred worked in the steel industry for 19 years and then he was laid off. He has been out of work for 30 months.

1983 - The Bronx, New York, New York, USA: A friend helps 15-year-old Del shoot heroin on the roof. Del has lived in an abandoned building since his mom died when he was 13.

1985 - El Paso, Texas, USA: Alejandro waded across the Rio Grande when he was 14. He is now a citizen and lives with his wife, Estrella and their seven children in Colonia Bosque Bonita in a trailer that’s just a stones throw from the Mexican border. He earns $3.25 an hour as a farm laborer. The families in Colonia Bosque Bonita on the Mexican border live in third world conditions without running water or sewage lines.

1972 - Bakersfield, California, USA: Child labor. Boy works in the grape fields.

1984 - Denver, Colorado, USA: The jailers of this 13-year-old first time offender consider him an escape risk. Therefore, he must wear leg shackles every time he walks from his minimum-security cottage to class in a juvenile facility for first time offenders.

1985 - Chicago, Illinois, USA: Boy flips on an old mattress in a vacant lot on the west side.

1985 - Clewiston, Florida, USA: Though Ricky and Mary's mother works full time as a short-order cook, they're still poor. They live in an unpainted wooden house, a shack.

1985 - Cincinnati, Ohio, USA: Boys hang out in Lower Price Hill, just across the river from Kentucky.

1985 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: 12-year-old Brian looks out the front door of his house where he lives with his mother and three sisters. Their "rust belt" neighborhood has many abandoned factories.

1987 - New York, New York, USA: Max kisses his sister Vanessa in the hallway outside their room in the Holland Hotel in Times Square. Since the rooms are so small, children play in the hallways. Max, like many poor youngsters, provides child care for his sister. This hotel provides no child care or play room for the children, who must play in dangerous hallways. One-third of homeless shelter residents are children and their families.