From Tom Cleary, CT Post:
Plastic bags stuffed with jackets, blankets and sleeping bags sat at the feet of Ashley Hogan Friday night as she smiled and nodded her head to the music that blasted out of speakers at the other end of McLevy Green in downtown Bridgeport.
“It’s really hard to get help,” said Hogan, 20, who is part of a growing homeless population in the city. “People see us, but they don’t help us. When we go (to shelters) they tell us ‘it’s full’ or ‘there’s no help here.'”With a shortage of beds in local shelters, they are left to sleep on the steps of churches and public buildings, under highway overpasses and in alleys, advocates like Eneida Martinez-Walker said. Often, they are kicked out of safe places to sleep, because downtown businesses don’t want them there.
But Friday night, an event held in the heart of downtown shined a light on those often stuck in the shadows. Martinez-Walker, who helped organize the event along with others from A Better Bridgeport–a recently created coalition of city activists founded and run by Kevin Muhammad–said they received a huge amount of support from the community, and had several bins full of clothes and blankets to hand out, along with coffee and donuts.
“The donations came from complete strangers,” said Martinez-Walker. “It’s nice to realize that there are people out there who are willing to help. A night like this shows that.”
Sipping from a cup of coffee, Skeeter Davis, 46, who has been homeless for more than three years, said it “feels good,” to have the community’s support.
“I hope this brings attention to the homeless in the city,” Davis said. “We aren’t all out here robbing people. We are good people who are just trying to survive. It’s no joke. People are dying out here.”
Like Hogan, many of the members of the homeless community that Martinez-Walker serves are young. In January 2011 there were 4,451 homeless people in the state, according to statistics kept by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness. About 20 percent are between 20 and 30 years old.
“I’m 23 and I’m homeless,” said Latoya Fuller, Hogan’s cousin. “And there are children out here younger than me.”
Fuller said she usually sleeps behind the state courthouse on Main Street, where she said it is safe, but recently, police have cracked down, arresting or threatening to fine those who sleep there, because of complaints from downtown businesses.
“We get kicked out of everywhere,” said Fuller. Lately, there have been about 30 people behind the courthouse each night, but before police started paying more attention to the area, there were about 100 sleeping there.
The goal of Friday night’s event was not only to help people like Hogan, Fuller and Davis, who also walked away with a new sleeping bag, but also to open the eyes of local politicians and business leaders.
“We hope this raises awareness,” Martinez-Walker said. “We want the mayor to help us find a location for our homeless population. Hopefully people can come here and see them, and find out what their needs are.”
Hogan will be getting some help soon. The Homeless Outreach Team (HOT), a part of the state Department of Health and Mental Services where Martinez-Walker works as a case manager, found her an apartment. Hogan said they have helped her get her life back together after she was kicked out of her aunt’s house. She said it can be tough to find a job, or a place to live, when you lose everything.
“They are like the parents I never had,” said Hogan, adding that they have helped here with little things, like getting a replacement for her birth certificate and Social Security card that she lost.
Martinez-Walker said there are about 50 to 60 people who come to HOT’s drop-in center on Fairfield Avenue each day.
“We are kind of like a family,” she said.
Another group, Helping Hands in the Community, was handing out loaves of bread Friday night.
On Monday, they will be hosting a Thanksgiving celebration at Joseph’s Coat Hall, 1475 Noble Ave. in the city. Anyone who is willing to volunteer and help set-up the event, serve the food, and clean-up after is asked to arrive at the coat hall at 5 p.m.
This post really left a mark. I live in an area of the City that does not bear witness to this type of urban issue. I am bit insulated, for lack of a better term, from this unfortunate reality; as insulated as one can get and still live in Bridgeport anyway. It will do me a world of good to head down here and volunteer, and I am going to give it my best shot. Time is the most precious of all gifts. The time we are allotted is best utilized in gifting it to others. Everyone gains in this most pristine use of the commodity of time.
I spent four hours as a volunteer greeter at the Black Rock Food Pantry this morning. We had 84 people shopping with us for food today. We shall have 275 clients picking up turkeys and fixings on Wednesday. We have been open every Saturday at our Princeton Street location since November 22, 2008.
Just providing small credentials for taking part in caring for those in need, and knowing many of them admit to poor choices in times past that cannot be changed.
We are very similar to about 40 other food pantries and kitchens in Bridgeport that regularly are available to those in need. We get to listen to many people tell their stories. Different policies and processes may be in play, as hours of service are also different, but a truly needy person can get served and even perhaps listened to.
Would someone help me to understand how you get homeless at 20? I can think of a few scenarios that embrace poor personal choices. It seems to me public schools offer a multitude of opportunities to receive a basic education for free and earn a high school diploma. That need not be the last stop in lifetime learning. I know Mayor Finch is a supporter of educational reform, so perhaps as he approaches the events or special distributions he can pick up a drum beat to keep kids in school, making a decision to get a diploma a good and powerful choice, get the learning in a warm school, where meals are available to the students who are poor.
Learning on the streets earns no bonus points for a resume. It is hard experience. How about getting Ashley or Skeeter or anyone appropriate to share their story of choices. Success in public schools that opened up many life choices is not usually part of the narrative. Such “street education” by folks on the street to youth not yet on the street 24 hours per day (I’m not talking about curfews) might just trigger some better attention to mature choices. Time will tell.
How about drug addiction? Is that what you call poor personal choices? Maybe picking up a drug is a poor choice but what real help is out there for the addict once they are hooked? I know you think there must be a couple of thousand in the city but you are wrong.
The day before you try your first drug to get high or try it out, the day before you make that choice, how were your choices previously? Good? Bad? Too soon to tell?
Grin, there has been help in this City for over 40 years. I was on the Board of the original Greater Bridgeport Regional Narcotics Program in the early ’70s. We had programs ranging from Reverend Simon Castillo spiritual abstinence approach to Methadone clinic and all points in between at the time.
Did those programs work? Not very well it would seem, because as you state, once you are hooked, why give that life up, if you are still young, think you are immortal and have no better course you wish to take with your life. And how has our National Drug War turned out in that same time period? Success or quicksand?
I am not counting the numbers. What I am saying is some kids in school may turn away from some of the poorer choices and stay in school, if they can connect the dots indicated by a first-person story narrated by someone who has lost opportunities, community status, a home, access to regular food, shelter, clothing and personal respect. I am not a better person because of me, but rather because of God-given gifts and an appreciation for the fact I do not have to learn all of life’s lessons by myself and alone. Sometimes I can take the life stories of others, whether true stories from real life, or fiction from books and movies and see where choices drove them. Life will kick you around and spit you out, and you still may not get it. Most families have seen the scourge of alcohol and/or substance abuse in one or more generations. When an abuser acknowledges their weakness in the face of a higher power, with the help of loving family and friends and professional assistance, and works at it one day at a time, there is reason for hope. At any point before that there may be some form of deception or blaming on others involved. But we started with homelessness, and with substance abuse, being without a home is not the real problem, but just one of the outcomes. Medical, legal, therapeutic, etc. approaches? Time will tell.
20 years old may seem very young to become homeless, but consider this: What if a life on the streets for a young person beats the life they are offered at home? I think this may be the case in more of these homeless young people’s bios than we would like to think, and that is a crying shame. I know we all become our own responsibility as we approach legal adulthood, but the passage of time does not instill the capacity to make healthy and rational choices, nor does one become instantly emotionally intelligent when one crosses the threshold into adulthood. They make the choices they make in the manner they are taught by parent figures. I think at that young of an age, if a boy or girl reaches out for help from a place that will truly benefit him or her, they are exceptional. but I doubt many really have the ability to identify true caring.
It can happen at any age and sometimes it has to do with circumstances beyond the control of the person being homeless. In today’s economy many people are unable to find a job and thanks to the policies of the people running our city government housing prices are unaffordable for many.
*** While OIB readers and bloggers are in a holiday frame of mind, after working at the CT Food Bank today loading vans and trucks of turkeys for many of the soup kitchen and holy-rollie church pantries in the Bpt area. I later started dropping off the Marine Corps “Toys for Tots” posters and the empty cardboard toy boxes at participating businesses. If anyone is interested or knows a business that would like to help collect toys for the kids program to be picked up before Xmas, please call-JESSIE, 203-218-2488, thanks! *** HAPPY THANKSGIVING! ***
If they are between 20 and 30 and do not have anything better to do, why don’t they join the army???
*** Maybe America should bring back the “military draft” for men and women between 18 and 25 years of age not in school! Three years active tour of duty followed by three years inactive reserve duty along with the G.I bill and unemployment benefits after your active duty’s up, to help you get back into society. In this world, having enough trained active, inactive and past veteran soldiers ready to meet any anti-freedom world threats is important to America and its allies! What do teens today who dropout, are not going to college for whatever reasons or have no jobs have to look forward to? *** PREPARE OUR YOUNG NOW FOR THE UNFORESEEABLE FUTURE! ***