<p>I disagree with the poster who said not to start the essay with a flashback. However, the style with which you do this is very important. Are you telling the story in the past or present tense? You jump back and forth from past to present tense starting with the very first sentence which makes it sound awkward. Pick a tense and stick with it. Also, be honest. I’m not saying you aren’t being honest, but you write about your struggles with being homeless, moving from shelter to shelter, and being embarrassed about it, and then a few sentences later you say that you wouldn’t change a thing and would do it all over again. It might sound more realistic to stick with how you learned and grew from the experience and leave the out the part about how you’d do it all over again.</p>