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”.

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) is shot by would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Agca in St Peter's Square, 13th May 1981. His attendants help him into his white jeep after the incident. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Byzantine and Christian museum in Athens, Friday, May 27, 2016. Russia's president is due in financially struggling Greece Friday for a state visit that will include a trip to a 1,000-year-old, all-male Orthodox Christian sanctuary in the north of the country. (Photo by Thanassis Stavrakis/AP Photo)

Tong Jieping, 44-year-old mentally disabled patient, is chained by his foot inside his room, in Qunxing village of Wangjiang county, Anhui province, China, July 14, 2015. Tong was diagnosed mentally ill when he was in his 20s. His parents, both in their 70s, could not afford the medical treatments so they had to lock him up in chains to prevent him from running away, according to Tong's family. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Street entertainer and fortune teller “Juana La Cubana” smiles holding a cigar in her mouth as she waits for tourists in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, May 24, 2015. Juana is 72 years old and has worked in the Cathedral square in Old Havana for 28 years. (Photo by Desmond Boylan/AP Photo)

A Syrian refugee girl cries as she walks through a rainstorm towards Greece's border with Macedonia, near the Greek village of Idomeni, September 10, 2015. Most of the people flooding into Europe are refes fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries who have a legal right to seek asylum, the United Nations said on Tuesday. (Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

A participant in the Crazy Races extreme sports game competes in the cross-country obstacle race in Ufa, Russia on September 21, 2015. (Photo by TASS/Barcroft Media)

A doll, placed by stranded Iranian migrant protesters, hangs from barbed wire in front of Madedonian police at the Greek-Macedonian border near to the Greek village of Idomeni November 29, 2015. The protesters were demonstrating against what they say is the closure of the border for Iranian migrants. According to the demonstrators, the hanging toys and dolls represent the outcome of being unable to return, if they are sent back to Iran. (Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)