to find other help. New Life would replace a peculiarly thriving community of the homeless. Tent City had a mayor and a set of rules; it operated for about four years. "You always had somebody to talk to," says Marvin Tomlinson. "We were a close-knit family." Tomlinson bounced for years between Tent City and an inpatient treatment center for people with mental health problems and drug addictions. A wiry 5-foot-2, Tomlinson was perpetually sullen; he robbed and beat people, he says. Still, it was a relatively stable time in his life. When Tomlinson was 3, his father killed his mother. Tomlinson himself left school in seventh grade. And when Marvin was a 19-year-old gang member, he fatally stabbed the mother of his own newborn daughter. Tomlinson spent the next 15 years in state prison. When he came out, a hardened man in his mid-30s, he almost immediately developed a crack addiction. He stayed with his grandmother for a time before ending up on the streets, becoming one of Tent City first inhabitants. After Tent City shut down, he shared a Spartan apartment in nearby Pennsauken. He was proud to show off his new place. He was figuring out how to stretch his food budget. He found himself smiling. For the first time in his adult life, he was both free and sober. But he didn't last long in the apartment. He ended up leaving after complaints about trouble-causing guests. He resettled at a shelter in Atlantic City and had easy access to a drug and mental health treatment program nearby. But there was a surprise raid of his shelter and he was arrested for failure to pay child support. That meant a couple weeks in jail. Emerging in December, he went back to the streets. On a warm March day, he sat on the barrier along a busy Camden road eating a plate of pasta provided by an outreach group. He was staying in a shelter in Camden, engaged to a woman, and hoping to get a job at a day center for the homeless. He was also hoping to get an apartment soon and into a new drug treatment program, even thinking of quitting cigarettes. A year after the promise of one new start, he's looking for another one. "Each day I wake up," he said, "is a blessing." ___(equals) While there were no children in Tent City, several people living there had young children with relatives or in foster homes. Kristin Burk was one of them, and she longed to have her children back. Burk says she's lived most of her life around addicts, including Marcus Rushworth, the man who would become her second husband. She didn't use drugs, she said, but her life was still a mess. Almost five years ago, she was in such a deep depression that she barely functioned. The state Division of Youth and Family Services took her three daughters from her. When the fourth, Faith, was born in December 2008, she was taken from Burk in the hospital. Burk, 35, says she coped with the loss by using heroin. Rushworth, 37, relapsed but still managed to work nearly daily in construction. Within months, they were homeless. Without rent to worry about, they could buy drugs with nearly all the money Rushworth made. For Burk, being homeless eased the pain of being separated from her daughters. "It wasn't like they were keeping my kids with me" then, she said — she was homeless, living at Tent City, and had nowhere to keep them. Around April of last year, Burk learned she was pregnant again. When the bus arrived, she and Rushworth got on. Rushworth immediately began a mental health program. Both he and Burk took methadone to control their addictions. They moved into an apartment in Pennsauken. Adorned with their old stuff, new purchases and donations from family — framed prints of Ansel Adams photos, religious posters, a collection of DVDs and video games, a flat-screen TV — it looked like a home. Still, Burk used heroin several times during her pregnancy. On Nov. 5, the baby with bright blue eyes was born. They named her Hope. A few days later, Burk was on her way back from church and got a call: Youth and Family Service caseworkers had learned that Kristin had a baby. The authorities were looking for mother and child. They went on the run, crashing with friends and relatives. But before the week was out, case workers tracked them down and took Hope. She's since been placed in a foster family — the pastor of Kristin's church. The couple have dedicated their lives to getting back Hope and Kristin's other daughters — particularly the oldest, 15-year-old Annastasia, who is living in a foster home. On New Year's Day, they married. They took in a mutt named Roxy. Kristin has gotten psychiatric help and is on medications to control bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses. They have stayed on their methadone program and passed drug test after drug test. And Kristin goes to church several times a week, for spiritual purposes — and because that's a place where she can hold her baby. Earlier this year, she and Marcus moved into a bigger apartment in a half-block from a playground in Pennsauken. They pay the $740 ren