Falling Through the Cracks — Lesley Choyce

Melanie and Trent are fighters. They fight to hold their dead-end jobs and stay in school at the same time. They fight to stay off the streets, fight against a welfare system that is worse than useless for them. They fight to stay together. When they manage to find an apartment together things seem to be getting better. But some of the other tenants are wild and dangerous and only make matters worse. And when Trent starts disappearing mysteriously, reappearing with lots of cash, Melanie gets worried. Soon she finds herself fighting alone, fighting to stay alive. Set against the gritty background of inner-city Halifax, Falling Through the Cracks is a story about the difficulties faced by the young and dispossessed, and of the indifference they often face in their struggles to survive.