Summary

In “Demi”, the first person narrator shifts from Lyla to a woman posing as a journalist to get an appointment at a housing nonprofit for the homeless. She pesters the head of Helping Hands with questions about how a person can get housing and how the charity aids the homeless. The narrator is frustrated by the evasive answers and knows the woman behind the desk can smell the urine on her clothing. She is ushered out of the office with a pamphlet and deflated sense of hope.

The narrator walks the streets and tells the reader how she became homeless. She describes the poverty of her childhood, her father’s games to keep them fed, and her juvenile belief that all people lived without money. She did not understand that other people had money until a friend of her father’s brought...