Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin”, after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to homelessness and prostitution. She grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, but now spends her time in Hunts Point, “trying to survive everyday. Just doing whatever it takes”.

A woman lays in a puddle of tomato juice during the annual “Tomatina” tomato fight fiesta in the village of Bunol, 50 kilometers outside Valencia, Spain, Wednesday, August 27, 2014. The streets of an eastern Spanish town are awash with red pulp as thousands of people pelt each other with tomatoes in the annual “Tomatina” battle that has become a major tourist attraction. At the annual fiesta in Bunol on Wednesday, trucks dumped 125 tons of ripe tomatoes for some 22,000 participants, many from abroad to throw during the hour-long morning festivities. (Photo by Alberto Saiz/AP Photo)

Star trails form over the Memorial House of the Bulgarian Communist Party on mount Buzludzha in this long exposure picture taken on September 12, 2014. The monument was officially opened in 1981 by the Bulgarian Communist regime to mark 100 years of the set up of an organised Socialist movement, a predecessor of the Bulgarian Communist Party. The monument, no longer maintained by the Bulgarian government after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, is now abandoned and vandalized. (Photo by Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)

A fighter jet flies above as Ukrainian soldiers sit on an armoured personnel carrier in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine April 16, 2014. Ukrainian government forces and separatist pro-Russian militia staged rival shows of force in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday amid escalating rhetoric on the eve of crucial four-power talks in Geneva on the former Soviet country's future. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

A workman takes a siesta on a girder during the building of Radio City, the city of New York spread out below. (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images). Circa 1933

A young man “painting” the Eiffel Tower. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). 9th May 1970

A Viet Cong suspect holds his hands up after a Vietnamese Ranger from the 21st Vietnam Infantry Division routed him from his hiding place. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). 7th November 1967

Henry Frayne of Australia shows his ability to triple jump the lenghth of more than two Formula 1 cars during a press conference at Albert Park on February 29, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Prezioso/Getty Images)