Homeless In New York

“My name is Willie, lam 28 years old, homeless, and dying of

AIDS. Please don’t let me die hungry.

— Sign on homeless man, NYC

 

Midnight on the Number 4 Subway from Greenwich Vil~lage. As the fluorescent-lit car hurtles along its dank subterranean track, we, the occupants, stare at our feet trying to avoid eye contact. In the garish artificial light, being swept to our destinies, we seem more lab rat than human. No one speaks. The stale air tastes of fear.

 

Suddenly, the door between cars slides open, emitting a rank creature of the night. In the swaying car, the ragged figure fights for balance and stops before us, thrusting a grubby rag-wrapped hand in our faces.

 

“All right, folks... one of New York’s homeless... give what you can!”

 

The voice is matter of fact, as if we’re expected to produce our wallets. The voice is also faltering and scratchy, young and female.

 

I look up at what once was a pretty face, perhaps 18 years old, someone s daughter, someone’s little sister, now alone in the night and pretty no longer. Her hair hangs in greasy locks over a vomit-stained military jacket, her eyes, from deep in blackened sockets, glow strangely yellow, results of a failing liver. Her face, once smooth and pale with youth, now covered in festering lesions. Her lips cracked and bleeding like a scene from “The Exorcist.” A fetid cloud of decay hangs about her.

 

Someone else’s precious baby has joined the nightmarish ranks of New City’s crack addicts. Crack cocaine has turned another flower of the future into a reeking, tunnel-scuttling scavenger.

 

“Why not go home to your mother, dear,” I suggest.

 

Her eyes don’t seem to register, staring as if disconnected. Then suddenly she leaps away, eyeing me now like a wary animal. A ragged hand goes deep into a ripped pocket and suddenly a paring knife flashes in front of us.

 

“Oh great!” I mumble to Vic. “Great town.”

 

The other occupants of the rumbling car quickly look away to insure their disinvolvement. We can expect no help from them, their diverted eyes are saying.

 

The girl sways, knife in hand, seemingly confused on what to do. I gather my legs beneath me, ready to spring.... somewhere.

 

The train suddenly brakes into the 59th Street Station, the doors sliding open with a great rush of air and the girl races for the platform. The doors shut behind her with a sigh of relief and off we go again.

 

“So how do you like our subway system so far?” asks Vic.

 

Vicki had told me that while riding home from work on another subway the week earlier, at one stop a crazed-looking maniac leapt in the crowded car, his wrist spurting blood from a fresh slash.

 

“I AM HOMELESS! I HAVE AIDS!! GIVE ME MONEY OR I’LL SPRAY YOU IN HIV BLOOD!!”

 

The man was subdued, but these little indecencies certainly do liven up public transportation here in the Big Apple.

 

Standing in a crowd on Madison Avenue, waiting for the light to change. Suddenly in the center of the crowd of perhaps 50 people, a hugh black man starts screaming.

 

NOTHING!!! AND YOU ARE ALL ANIMAL KILLERS!!!”

In any crowd of 50 people on Madison Avenue, 25 of them are wearing fur... the rest, leather.

 

“ANIMAL MURDERERS!! KILLERS OF HARMLESS FURRY FRIENDS!!”

 

As you can imagine, the air was thick with tension, yet one did a thing. No one even appeared to notice the guy,

who I thought was perhaps seconds from pulling an uzi.

 

Someone could self-combust on a sidewalk in New York and nobody would notice, no one would get involved.

Walking down Madison Avenue sidestepping ‘homeless’ nowadays is not unlike Captain Roger Over fighting religious salesmen through the airport. They are everywhere, hovering about ATM machines, outside groceries. Always in your face.

 

So just how many homeless are there in this city. I started to wonder, finally to the point of investigation. After two dozen “wrong department” calls, I reached “The Homeless Coalition.”

“My name’s Church, a writer for the Crested Butte Chronicle…”

“Never heard of it...”

“Anyway, just how many homeless are there in New York?”

“A lot of ‘em.” Click.

“Thank you, you been most informative.”

I heade off to the librrary down Fifth Avenue…

“Hey, man you got any spare change?”

“SPARRE change? Hey, I worrk forr a newspaper…”

Twenty feet farther…

“Give me some money, mister!”

“Get a job.”

“I got a job…begging to yourr horrny ass…”

 

Fifty feet farther...

“How ‘bout some change, buddy...”

“Forget it!”

“Somethin’ wrong with the man that can’t give!” he called after me.

“Something wrong with the man that can’t work... pal!” I yelled back.

“Give to the homeless?” another sad face.

“Then I’ll be homeless.”

“So?”

 

In the library, I find the facts. There are 100,000 homeless in New York —10% are women, 80% are black or Hispanic. Nearly all are drug users, begging for the cost of crack rather than a room, as a Supreme Court judgment in 1981 provided free shelter for all homeless. There are also 50,000 free meals served daily from these shelters. The mayor is trying to pass a law whereupon if a homeless man refuses a job or education, his free ride is up. Trouble is... there are no jobs, say the homeless, and in fact there are 310,000 people who do want to work, presently unemployed.

 

So how lucrative is begging?

 

One night in SoHo, I watched a guy panhandle for two hours. I know he made $20 an hour. Another fellow came right out and told me.

 

“$200 a day, but hey, that’s nine hours.”

 

So why would a guy go to work for $3.50 per hour, minimum wage, when he can knock back $20 per hour by just sticking his hand out?

 

Begging is not all big money and glam our, but the guys that don’t need it are taking it away from the people that do. And there are thousands that do. On rainy, cold nights, there are plenty of broken dreams huddled under cardboard and newspaper in plenty of doorways and alleys. It wrenches one’s heart to see an old woman, alone in the world, scratching through trash cans to survive. Or a legless Vietnam Vet scuttling crablike through filthy, urine-stinking subway tunnels, a cardboard sign and tin can strung about his neck. But New Yorkers have been hardened by the panhandlers above ground and there is little pity left for the needy.

 

The homeless have been a thorn in the side of administrations dating back before George Bush, who in his benevolent mercy actually invited a homeless couple to his inauguration and, get this now, even GAVE the couple the $50 entry tickets.

 

The homeless are a huge financial burden to this country, but some argue that the majority don’t actually want to work. In fact, most are simply too stoned to work, they claim. New York City spends some $60 million a year just on detoxification units, and it is clear that figure doesn’t touch the epidemic. The drug problem is certainly evident daily in New York City. Take, for example, the case of Mr. Irving L. Surdam, who on January 22 drove his 18-wheel semi truck on a wild ride through three boroughs of the city. Starting by knocking flat the toll booth on the Triborough Bridge, Mr. Surdam then continued south at 75 miles per hour through rush hour traffic, knocking some 15 cars out of his way. The speeding semi ripped up guard rails, tore down signs, and scattered pedestrians on a “14-mile path of destruction.” Irving finally crashed into a tree, of all things, at Kennedy Airport, whereupon he leapt from the truck, smashed his way into the Delta terminal, pummeled two baggage handlers, then leapt from a second story window, breaking numerous bones. Upon his arrest Mr. Surdam admitted to the police that he had taken “a couple amphetamines.”

Now THAT, dear readers, is an amphetamine…no wonder this place has some problems.