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10/9/2015 Life on the Streets - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/06/nyregion/07homeless-in-new-york-city.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&re… 3/13

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N.Y. / RegionShare

By NATE SCHWEBER SEPT. 6, 2015

Photo



19

Highbridge section ofthe Bronx

May 2014(sporadically)

Outside Heritage Field

Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times

Jose Morales and his 17-year-old girlfriend,Kimberly Williams, who is five months pregnant,had built a shelter out of a blanket tethered to afence, underneath the No. 4 train.

Mr. Morales said he grew up in a troubled home inthe Bronx and eventually attended high school ata residential treatment center for drug and alcoholaddiction. When he got out, he went into fostercare with a family in Brooklyn, because his motherhad been sent to prison on drug charges. Herebelled.

"I didn't want to listen, I didn't want to do nochores, I didn't want to obey no curfew," he said."If I was able to go back right now, I'd apologizeand fix it."

He was sent to another foster home in the Bronx. That was when he met Ms.Williams over Facebook. When she was kicked out of her home on Long Islandafter a fight with her grandmother, Mr. Morales allowed her to stay with him —a violation of house rules. They were both evicted.

They squatted on a rooftop in Brooklyn before taking up residence in theircurrent location. They went to the city intake center in the Bronx for homelessfamilies, but learned they were ineligible because they were not married or in adomestic partnership.

On Wednesday night, they huddled together on the sidewalk and watched apraying mantis crawl on the fence above their bed.

"I go around, I ask for a job here and there, but nobody's hiring," Mr. Moralessaid. "This isn't good for her, it isn't good for me."



43

South Bronx

2013

Joyce Kilmer Park

Photo


Dawn Johnson and her domestic partner,Mohamed Diallo, used to live in a shabby Bronxapartment, supported by his job as a mechanic.The building owner allowed the apartment to goweeks without running water and more than ayear without heat.

They took the landlord to housing court, but Ms.Johnson said the constant crises over basicutilities and the stress of navigating the legalprocess were too much to juggle for Mr. Diallo, 32,who worked at a mechanic's shop. In 2013 he losthis job, and then they lost their home.

"We had no place to go and we had no fundsbacked up," she said.

They tried the shelter system, but they said it lacked resources for coupleswithout children. Ms. Johnson said she had been treated in the past fordepression, anxiety and bipolar disorder — conditions that make it hard for herto hold a job. She is not being treated currently.

She and Mr. Diallo sat on folding chairs Wednesday night, next to a tatteredsuitcase, a shopping cart and two coolers with bottles of water that he hawks formoney. They shared hand-rolled cigarettes, and Mr. Diallo swilled a 24-ouncecan of malt liquor. Terrified of being separated from Mr. Diallo, Ms. Johnsonsaid she chose to live in city parks and train stations, rather than risk checkinginto a shelter.

"I don't want to leave Mohamed," she said, weeping.



41

Staten Island

1999

Outside Heritage Field

Photo


Underneath the No. 4 train platform, HeatherPittenger raised up her tank top to reveal a hugescar down her belly, where she said her abusiveex-husband shot her in the late 1990s during afight.

She had been living in Allentown, Pa., and theyran a shop called Hellbound Tattoo. Her father, aformer New York police officer, rescued her andbrought her back home to Staten Island.

Ms. Pittenger grew up in what she described as agood Jewish home. Her mother worked as anurse.

“I’m middle-class America,” she said. “I was raised very well.”

In 1999, she found her father dead — she believes of natural causes — in theirhome.

"I just walked away," she said. "It was the first time in my life I walked awayfrom everything."

Living on the streets, she was mugged and bashed in the head with a brick —the hairless scar still visible beneath her short, sandy hair. It took her two yearsto relearn to walk, but the fatigue and vertigo made working impossible. Shecollects cans to recycle for food money and begs for cigarettes. She has avoidedshelters, calling them “unsafe.”

Photo



36

Queens

2006 (sporadically)

McCarren Park


"Being sober — it just didn’t work for me," saidJason Jones, who is married and has a daughteron Long Island.

Mr. Jones said he served in the Army and once dida stint as a fund-raiser for a congressionalcandidate. It was around 2006 that alcohol beganto take control of his life, he said, along with whathe described as a desire to be more aware of"what's really going on in the world, like inRwanda," rather than the mundane daily duties ofworking a job and tending to his family.

He bounced around the homes of family membersand girlfriends before finally winding up in thecity shelter system, but he hated it. He spent time in the Wards Island shelter,and went on to share a house with other men from the shelter.

One of the roommates took him on a walk through McCarren Park, where hemet a group of people who hang out around the northwest corner. He fell inwith them quickly and has spent his summer with them. But he is alreadythinking about the winter, and said he intended to enroll in a back-to-workprogram and either make amends with family or re-enter the shelter system.

"If you're willing to work with the people inside it's not that bad," he said. "It isjust perseverance, with the winos."

Photo



73

Yonkers

2013

La Guardia Playground


John Ruiz’s parents moved from Puerto Rico to

New York when he was 3 and lived in the same

apartment in Yonkers their entire lives. When

they died in 1998, he continued living there but

got into an altercation with a neighbor and was

arrested. The neighbor got a restraining order,

and when Mr. Ruiz was released from jail he was

told he could not return.

"The manager of the building said I couldn't come

back," he said.

Mr. Ruiz, wearing an unbuttoned shirt and blue

plaid pajama pants, ate beef and rice out of a foam

container as he sat on a bench beside a push-cart

with garbage bags of clothes early on Thursday morning.

He said he had never worked.

"I suffer from depression," he said. "I was taking medication for that, and high

blood pressure. And I have problems with my legs. It makes it hard to walk."

People in the neighborhood now know him well enough that he can survive on

charity.

"I got a lot of people here, they know me, when they see me around they give me

a couple of dollars, they buy me food," he said. He tried the shelter system but

contracted tuberculosis during a stay, he said. "I'll sleep on a train," he said,

“when the winter comes.”

Photo



38 and 35

Old Bridge, N.J.

2014

Broadway near 37thStreet


C. J. and Tiffany Dillinger cut a tender image inthe midst of hard circumstance early on Thursdayas they spooned together on Broadway on a bedmade from pedestrian plaza chairs that they haddressed with a foam mat, sheets and pillows,cocooned in corrugated cardboard.

They were shaken awake just before 7 a.m. by asecurity guard for the Gramercy District Alliance.As they stuffed their pillows and blankets into aratty rolling suitcase, they said they had beenhomeless since their house in Old Bridge, N.J.,was foreclosed on a year ago.

They had fallen behind on their mortgage. Thenthey were both laid off. She had a shipping andreceiving position. He was a construction worker.

"We're trying to get some housing," Ms. Dillinger said. "I don't want to beseparated from him."

They married 16 years ago, and homelessness is the hardest challenge they havefaced, Ms. Dillinger said. They started taking public transportation into NewYork City in July because they heard it was a more manageable place to behomeless.

"Believe it or not, there's more resources here," Ms. Dillinger said. "Soupkitchens, places to eat. We came because we heard about a couples' shelter."

When they tried to get into the couples' shelter, however, they were denied. ButMs. Dillinger said, "I'd rather be out here than in shelters."

As Mr. Dillinger turned the walls from their previous night's room back intoflattened cardboard and dropped it beside a curbside trash can, Ms. Dillinger'seyes misted.


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/06/nyregion/07homeless-in-new-york-city.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&r… 10/13

"There's more resources for survival here," she said. "But I wouldn't call itliving."

63

East Village,Manhattan

2003

Near Tompkins SquarePark

Photo


Jerelyn Fisher sat in a wheelchair early onThursday under a building scaffolding, bathed inbright light, with newspapers spread across herlap. She rested her bare, badly swollen feet on ablack suitcase. Trash bags were piled high aroundher, nearly bursting with her belongings.

Ms. Fisher lived for years in an apartment onAvenue D and Third Street. She taught sewingclasses in New York City public housing and alsoin a fabric store until 2003.

"I just couldn't find another job," she said. "Ibecame homeless and discovered a whole new wayof living."

She has avoided the shelter system because shesays she finds the other residents challenging.

“There are a lot of people who are upset and angry because they are homeless,”she said.

She turned to religion to deal with the stresses of being homeless and nowpreaches to others.

"The biggest thing I've learned is how Satan has mistreated humans," she said."I've learned that God Jehovah lives above us and you have to know how to prayif you're going to survive in this world."



Her plan for the winter is to wrap herself in double plastic bags, as she has donefor years.

"It insulates you from the cold," she said. "Sometimes you get so hot inside youhave to take off one of the bags."

55

El Salvador

Aug. 31

Moore HomesteadPlayground

Photo


Manuel Reyes was upfront about the reason hewas thrown out of the apartment he shared withhis wife and three children and had to stayovernight in a playground: alcoholism.

"I don't have another problem," he said. "Onlydrinking."

After he immigrated to the United States, heworked for 20 years as a superintendent of abuilding, not far from the playground, he said.

People warned him that his addiction would costhim his job, Mr. Reyes said, but he did not listen.

"Drinking, drinking, drinking," he said. "I lost myjob."

By attending regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, he managed to staysober for two years, but that ended last month.

"It's not easy, not drinking," he said.

Mr. Reyes, who has a short gray beard and was wearing a raggedy flannel shirt,carried a blue duffel bag that he said contained everything he owned. Comedaylight, he planned to visit a friend who owns a nearby bodega. They had



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worked out a deal. If Mr. Reyes bought beer from the bodega, he could sleep fora few hours in the dank downstairs storage room.

"I'm going to drink a couple of beers and stay in the basement of the bodega,"he said. "What can I tell you? It's the life. I have to live the life."

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