Homeless and Hoarding

Leah Sottile: Fear meets Sarah Wolff in the elevator.

It's standing beside her as she rides to her third-floor apartment. Taunting her. Tapping her shoulder and whispering in her ear.

"When I get off the elevator up here, I panic," she says. She can't see her apartment door from the elevator. "Is there a note saying 'You're evicted, you can't live here anymore?' I have that panic every time I leave the apartment … I'm like, 'Oh please don't let there be anything on the door. Dear God. Please.'"

Wolff, a 29-year-old formerly homeless mother, is haunted by that fear. She thinks about loss constantly. Losing her apartment. Losing her things. Losing Aiden, her 9-year-old son, again.

Sometimes those …