Nikita Stewart: Keeping Your Subjects Close
Nikita Stewart is the Editor for the New York Times Real Estate section and has been reporting poverty, politics, and culture for almost ten years. In 2020, Stewart published a book called Troop 6000: The Girl Scout Troop That Began in a Shelter and Inspired the World. The book follows a girl scout troop started in one of Manhattan’s homeless shelters and spread to several of the city’s shelters, offering young girls and women the experience of joy, friendship and stability through the deep hardship of poverty.
I found Stewart through Instagram about a month ago when I stumbled upon a virtual cookie sale for Troop 6000 and immediately ordered my cookies. What was first a fun reminder to order my Thin Mints and Tagalongs turned into a fascination and admiration for all this troop has done and for Stewart’s terrific reporting on their story.
How did you go about this book? How did you approach it? How did you get this whole comprehensive story from these wonderful people?
It started out as a story. And then I decided to write a book. I reported while I was still working, most of the reporting took place on Friday nights, which is when they would have their meetings and on the weekends during field trips. And so I spent a lot of time at the shelter for more than a year.
So much of the book has them sort of moving around to and being displaced into different shelters, how did you go about moving with them?
Some of those took place before they actually even got to Sleep Inn. So I had to go back and recreate those moments, basically, through reporting. And so there are times people will tell you something, and then it turns out their memory isn’t that great. And so a lot of times people are talking about things in real time on social media, or through text messages, etc. And so I got a lot of those from, from all the different subjects, and was able to recreate the times when they were in other shelters, or when they were in housing, and when they were being evicted. A lot of them were talking in real time, to friends, family, whatever through social media, text messages, and I was able to get those and piece together a story.
There’s such a large population of homeless people, especially in New York, how do you find that these specific subjects speak so well to the general issue? We’ll never be able to see the face of every single homeless person. So how do you find that that also affects how people see homelessness or characterize it through journalism?
Well, you know, my thing is, people are people. Homelessness is not a, you know, a trait. It’s something that people are experiencing. And so just like people experience being, you know, in a home that they bought, or an apartment that they rent, some people are living in shelter, or some people are living on the street. It’s just their circumstances, it is not who they are. And so that’s how I approach it.
How have you found that social media spreads this information and spreads these stories farther?
Virtually, it was difficult for Troop 6000. Trying to get people to meet virtually is hard. But I remember I went to like the first virtual meeting of Troop 6000. And it was hilarious, because all the kids knew what to do because now they’re so used to logging on for school. They were in the chat and everything. So the interesting thing about the pandemic is that before, for example, people knew of Troops 6000, but they didn’t really know how to help. And now it’s become kind of second thought to just go ahead and go online, like the digital cookie sales.
Are there any other programs that you’re interested in that serve some less same purposes as the Girl Scouts?
Troop 6000 is the one that’s the most consistent and the biggest. There are other things every year.
I actually think this is very special. I hope they continue it under the new administration, but each year under Steve Banks, students who were in the shelters, and were seniors graduating got a whole ceremony and they would get computers.
One of the Girl Scouts in the book, when she graduated from high school, at the shelter where she was staying, they set up a whole room with a screen, so that she could watch the ceremony, and so that she could participate in the ceremony. Her family could be there safely, you know, masks, blah, blah, blah.
So, you know, that’s not exactly a program, but it certainly is a service that’s being provided to try to give some kind of normalcy and even some joy to children who are living in shelters.
How have you found your reporting on homelessness having, especially with children, tangible effects?
In some cases, there are small things like the one time I wrote about one woman in particular. She was just talking about being in the shelter, and her commute and all this other stuff. And, I looked at my mailbox, The New York Times one day, and I was like, “What is this?” and I opened it up, and it was like, just some random couple. I think they were from either New Jersey or Westchester. And they were just like, it was like a $100 bill. And they were like, we read your story and we wanted her to have this $100. The story was a month old. I tried to call her. It was cut off. I remembered in the story I wrote–well, I didn’t put it exactly where she works in the story–but I knew the supermarket where she worked. Then I realized that there were 10 of the same supermarket in her vicinity. I proceeded to go through the phone directory and on the 10th try they were like, “oh, yeah, hold on.” I got on the phone with her. “You know, someone reached out, they sent this money.” And she said, “Oh, I’m at work now.” So I stopped by her job and gave her money. That’s like something small, but it was big for her.
