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 sometimes ate dinners out with his two adult daughters — including the daughter of the woman he killed. He found himself smiling. For the first time in his adult life, he was both free and sober. He tried to avoid his old friends, knowing he could easily succumb to drugs if he was around them. He says he relapsed once in those first weeks on his own, and immediately regretted getting high. He was letting down Pastor Khan and all the other people who were rooting for him. "When I slipped up, I could have gotten away with it. But it would have eaten me up knowing that I have all the support now," he said. He didn't last long in the apartment. Micah Khan says he was kicked out for having trouble-causing guests; Tomlinson says he left on his own because the apartment manager was hassling him. 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) The population of Tent City changed frequently; people came and went. Jack Maltese, 45, was there just a week before Khan arrived. Maltese, whose hair is slicked back to reveal a crude tattoo of a hammer on his forehead, used to be a carpenter but he hasn't been able to work for years because of a back injury that led to an addiction to painkillers. He's also struggled with depression. In April 2010, he was living in a supportive housing program in the suburban community of Audubon when police found 18 marijuana plants he was growing in his closet there. Kicked out of the house, he found his way to Tent City and was barely settled when Khan arrived. Maltese was eager for a fresh start. He was assigned mentors and, as an ex-con, drew special attention from Micah Amir. The younger Amir had served nearly two years in prison on drug and gun charges, and after he was released in 2007, he launched the Nehemiah Group, an arm of his father's church that seeks to help former inmates rejoin society. Through the foundation, Micah Khan took charge of helping Tent City's residents as they moved first to a pair of hotels, and then dispersed. Several lived at some point in one of the two homes the foundation uses to house former inmates. By late summer, Maltese was in the Nehemiah Group's home in Gloucester City, a blue-collar town adjacent to Camden. He said he was not getting high, and was going to his methadone program. He'd spend some days on a bench staring at the Delaware River, hoping that things were really turning around. His ex-girlfriend was at least partially persuaded. She brought their toddler to a family reunion he attended. Finally, he thought, he might be a father to a son he hadn't seen in two years, the boy whose photos he'd proudly show off on his cell phone. There were also indications he was about to get a disability settlement worth tens of thousands of dollars. Lunch, Maltese promised friends and acquaintances, would be on him. While some of his former neighbors were already back on the streets — and resentful, believing that New Life had not done enough — Maltese was grateful. "If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here today," he said. "I never had nobody do for me what they've done for me." Still, he faced one enormous hurdle: Because he had previously been convicted of a bank robbery, his marijuana charges could bring several years in prison. His public defender offered some hope; because Maltese was in life-skills classes, worked with mentors and was being subjected to drug tests, a plea deal and a sentence of under six months was possible. But he feared his ex-girlfriend would not understand. "She will say, 'You say you're doing great, but look now, you're back in prison," he fretted. During the long stretches of waiting for the lawyers and judge to be ready to deal with his case, Maltese and his supporters huddled in the court hallway, clasped hands and prayed. Micah Khan took an assistant prosecutor aside to make the case for Maltese. "I told her that the Jack Maltese you see today isn't the Jack Maltese you see in your files," he explained. Finally, he pleaded guilty to a lesser drug possession charge and received a sentence calling for three years of probation and a work program, but no jail time. Then he blew it. He didn't show up for his work program, and went to jail for more than four months. By spring, he was living in a halfway house. ____ 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 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 lo