9/24
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| Police drills.... |
Sounds of commotion on the street outside my window take me away form my work to see what’s going on. A woman is lying in the street. The middle of 115th . Cars are backed up and honking their horns. A woman who has just left work at the school across the street persuades the cars to back up and clear the street, but the street starts to fill again. I join with a neighbor to move one of the heavy water filled street barricades into the center of the street to block traffic. The school volunteer tries to engage the woman. “ Ma’am, you got to get up an out of the street.””Why?” "Because the cars keep coming and they come fast and they can’t see you and you don’t want to get run over.” “Why?” “Hey you're not safe here.” “Why?” Lots of neighbors are gathered around. Trying to figure out what she might be on. She raises to an elbow. ‘I need a cigarette” she says. The man next to me says “I got one. ” “Newport?” She says, “Gotta be a Newport.” ‘Sure,” he says, “that’s what I got.” I notice he’s got Marlboros, but I’m not about say so. “Bring it here” she says, “No, you gotta come get it,” he says. They go back and forth on this awhile and finally she drags herself to the sidewalk, The school worker gets her up to the steps. The man gives her the Marlboro. She lights it and inhales, looks at him with a scowl. But the drama is over. Took about half an hour or so. Every other week or so, I see someone out on the sidewalk, just laid out. Where I live, I see a lot of broken, troubled or in trouble people. Mostly Black. The homeless camp on the corner of Morningside and 110th, mostly Mexican. The vast majority of troubled people I see are BIPOC, as they say these days. (Black, Indigenous, People of Color.) An objective sign of our societal sin. A painful daily reality.
I go on to the bar around the corner to met a friend and share this story. The weather is mild and overcast, I’m feeling the clouds. I’m tired of the Covid keeping your spirts up routine. It’s exhausting. Small disappointments, slights, grow in the way they weigh upon me. Just tired of it. Of everything.
The Center Board meets and the focus is on how to be an arts producing organization in the midst of Covid. We’ve been cleared for video production in the sanctuary bu thats it. A virtual “season” of sort sorts being put together. A longtime arts administrator on the board repots that citywide, 62% of all cultural workers are out of work. Income down, building expenses rising, and still we go on. One resident arts group is moving out, no longer able to afford rent to pay fo space they can’t use. We’re counting on a virtual “gala” to save the day.
The Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing has called together a community meeting of the faith community to talk about the continuing neighborhood controversy over homeless people being housed in boutique hotels. There are clergy, lay people, social workers, the Manhattan Borough President, the neighborhood’s State Assembly rep and just plain neighbors. And homeless residents are here to speak for themselves. In response to well funded NIMBY (not in my backyard, though we’re not supposed to use that word) complaints, the mayor declared he would move the resident back to shelters. And began displacing people with disabilities to do that. Advocates struck back and stopped him in his tracks. Only 40 some removed. Over 200 remain. Things are at a stalemate.
As supportive as we are of the residents, it’s very clear that the mayor blew this. He moved people in the shelters into the hotel because of the reality that the shelters were hot beds of Covid with no PPE to speak of or social distancing. But from the beginning of this fiasco he had no coherent plan. You don’t move unprepared homeless people off into a gentrified neighborhood without telling them. Inviting the community to help solve the problem. The antis were first to respond with vitriol and money. As our Borough President pointed out, it’s not the first time. The best of supportive housing programs hav been met with pushback and hyperbolic reactions. Still, every action of the mayor has been wrong, strategically. Thankfully supportive people in the neighborhood organized as well. And stopped the move that would have displaced people with disabilities. Committed to the project of working together to improve the situation.
Project Renewal has been organizing much needed services for the residents. Neighborhood settlement house Goddard-Riverside has been working on activities and serves. A grassroots organization, One Heart Upper West Side arose to show positive support and seek to develop rcaltonshio with the residents. And resident spokespeople like Shams da Homeless Hero have begun to emerge to give the residents a voice. Their own voice. Clergy from non-denominational Christian churches and Jewish neighbors have come together to organize spiritual “walk and talks.” One church has adopted a hotel and begun a sermon series on “who is my neighbor?“ And given $10000 to Legal Aid. New ideas begin to flow. My old congregation would like to do something involving sharing meals together . Marc Greenberg of the IAHH has done what he does best, drawing us all together to see what we can do.
This is what is clear:
* Homelessness was at record numbers before Covid. The mayor had failed to come up with any effective response.
* Covid complicated the problem by making the shelters hotspots
* The mayor exacerbated the situation by basically dumping people in a gentrifying, traditionally politically astute neighborhood.
* Already Covid weary people responded negatively
* The mayor quickly buckled
* The residual good heart of a historically progressive neighborhood found itself and responded
* The Assembly brought together a potentially effective collaboration of neighbors, government, social services, faith community and homeless people speaking for themselves.
All this is many times more difficult in coronavirusworld, but. If there’s anyway to find an effective, workable solution, this is it.
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