LaTisha Nicholson was determined to keep her family together. The single mom and her three children were often homeless, living in various shelters across the city.

Things were looking up in 2014, when Nicholson got a job as a home health-care aide and then found an apartment in Southeast Washington. Then a new baby came along. But days later, DeMarco Nicholson, the oldest of her children, found his mother lifeless in a bathtub. She had died of heart failure at 34.