NY houses homeless in luxury apartments; neighbors cry foul
Submitted by Kirsten Blocker on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 12:42pm
I’ve been stewing this past week over reports out of New York City of a homeless shelter provider using luxury apartments to temporarily house homeless families. This type of program is called apartment-based living shelters or scattered site programs and is a shelter model used throughout the nation. However, Brooklyn neighborhood residents are in a tizzy because they don’t feel homeless people should be housed in such high-end places that few “working” people can even afford. Never mind that homeless families living in apartment units receive case management and support services, have a code of conduct, and are required to spend many hours a week in self-sufficiency activities such as attending educational and training programs, housing, and/or job search. Families in transition are far from idle.
What I’m particularly concerned about is not so much the uproar about using luxury apartments for shelter, but people’s response and view of homeless people. Frankly, I’ve been thoroughly disgusted by the lack of compassion towards homeless families that people have shown. Even the imagery used in mass media are not representative of homeless America. I have the sneaking suspicion that Americans still, when thinking about who is homeless, envision maybe the man or woman on the street corner asking for spare change. Hollywood feeds into this negative stereotype depicting the homeless as “bums” or “hobos” that make liberal use of inebriating substances.
Over the past week I’ve heard and read “those people” enough to make my ears burn. Comments like “Why should ‘those people’ live in a place nicer than my own?” and “’Those people’ get to live better than I do rent free!” It’s like to be homeless is to be unworthy of any compassion, and—gasp of horror—a place with granite counters and matched stainless appliances.
I’m so fed up with this pervasive attitude towards homeless people that is utterly demeaning and dehumanizing. Doesn’t anyone ever think that they can’t put a truer face on homelessness people she or he might be the person working in the next cubical? Perhaps the college student with the 3.6 GPA? Perhaps “The Vagabond” may be the most visible representation of homelessness, but in Boston, at least, the majority of who is homeless are, in fact, families with children. And if this economic downturn has proven one thing, it’s that too many Americans are unfortunately just one paycheck from being homeless.
No one wants to be homeless. No matter how posh it is, a shelter is a shelter. Many people don’t realize that even though the families are in apartments, they are still subject to curfews, strict rules (many programs don’t even allow visitors), code of conduct, and are required to keep the unit scrupulously clean. In this economy overwrought with job losses and natural disasters, we need places to house the homeless, and if there is a surplus of units, why not put them to good use to keep a roof over a family’s head rather than keep them vacant and in disrepair?
Kirsten Athena Blocker
Coordinator of Marketing & Communications
Crittenton Women’s Union
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Check this out! Have you
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