Bronx

Jose Morales

Age 19 Originally from Highbridge section of the Bronx Homeless since May 2014 (sporadically) Location Outside Heritage Field

Jose Morales and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Kimberly Williams, who is five months pregnant, had built a shelter out of a blanket tethered to a fence, underneath the No. 4 train.

Mr. Morales said he grew up in a troubled home in the Bronx and eventually attended high school at a residential treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction. When he got out, he went into foster care with a family in Brooklyn, because his mother had been sent to prison on drug charges. He rebelled.

“I didn’t want to listen, I didn’t want to do no chores, I didn’t want to obey no curfew,” he said. “If I was able to go back right now, I’d apologize and fix it.”

He was sent to another foster home in the Bronx. That was when he met Ms. Williams over Facebook. When she was kicked out of her home on Long Island after a fight with her grandmother, Mr. Morales allowed her to stay with him — a violation of house rules. They were both evicted.

They squatted on a rooftop in Brooklyn before taking up residence in their current location. They went to the city intake center in the Bronx for homeless families, but learned they were ineligible because they were not married or in a domestic partnership.

On Wednesday night, they huddled together on the sidewalk and watched a praying mantis crawl on the fence above their bed.

“I go around, I ask for a job here and there, but nobody’s hiring,” Mr. Morales said. “This isn’t good for her, it isn’t good for me.”