A couch is not a home: Where the hidden homeless get housing vouchers

Being housed can be far from being at home. In Boston, a new aid effort recognizes the vulnerability of “doubled-up” parents and children – a couch-surfing homeless population traditionally overlooked by subsidized housing programs.

Seven-year-old Cristynn was scared to be left in her bedroom alone. She followed her mother, Taylor López, everywhere in their new apartment. Ms. López had an idea why. Homeless since birth, Cristynn had always stuck by her side as the two bounced from one crowded apartment to the next, huddling on a sofa at night, living...