They Live Under Bridges, In Abandoned Buildings, In Cemeteries, Behind Shopping Centers And Malls
Homelessness accompanies a number of mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Mentally ill persons have a tendency to become chronically homeless. It’s believed by MentalIllnessPolicy.org that there are over 250,000 seriously mentally ill persons in our country.
This statistic is very telling. What it says:
there are more homeless people with untreated severe psychiatric illnesses than there are people receiving care for their diseases.
To understand this, think of the streets as a large ward for the mentally ill.
The bottom line here is that many people are living on the streets coping not only with the problems of homelessness but also the mental illness they are afflicted with.
Releasing patients out of hospitals saves money for the mental health system but it shifts the costs over to jails and prisons which are much more expensive.
While a seriously mentally ill person is trying to survive on the streets dealing with things like dumpster diving for food, s/he is also dealing with being robbed, beaten, etc. And, finally, s/he is not being treated for disease.
We had several of these very ill people who visited our pantry regularly. as long as they were not physically aggressive, they were treated with dignity and shopped however they wanted.
Not All Homeless People Sit On The Sidewalk With Signs And a Cup – Not In Woodstock, Anyway
It’s estimated that 10% of households visiting pantries are homeless. Most shelter clients have no other place to live. Many of them have jobs but simply don’t make enough to pay rent. It’s estimated that 24% of soup kitchen clients have no home.
Occasionally this gets a little complicated. One shopper came into the pantry as a homeless person. “I live in my car” he said. (How? Here it is February and the temperature goes below freezing every night).
“My wife is pregnant. We’ve got her in a women’s shelter. I’m working 2 jobs to get the money together for the baby.”
SHELTERED HOMELSSS are those living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangements (including shelters, transitional housing and hotels/motels paid for by charitable organizations or by Federal, State, or local Government programs.
UNSHELTERED HOMELESS are those individuals or families living with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designated for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings including cars, parks, campgrounds, abandoned buildings, bridges, etc.
CHRONIC HOMELESS are those who have been homeless at least 4 times in the past three years. Or, they have been homeless for more than a year.
Thanks for reading this blog/book.
In the next few posts we’ll examine the plight of the mentally ill homeless persons.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Meet a Few of Your Woodstock Neighbors
One shopper always visits the pantry without shoes. “Take these bags and wrap them around your feet.” instructs Guy Oddo each time he comes by.
At first, we were made uncomfortable by this situation. However, over time, most of us adjusted to Shoeless Joe’s situation and realized this is just (ho hum), another pantry event. Once we became more comfortable with the situation, he did too.
The female homeless shopper is in a special category because most of them take such care with their skin and hair. Where do they shampoo their hair?
And, of course, the homeless family is, for me, so tragic. It’s hard enough for a homeless man or woman to keep clean but what about the kids, the baby? How do they do it? And, yet, the families come into the pantry looking the best they possibly can to shop for their three-day supply of food.
We had one family, a mother, father, 3 children, who lived in a small camper throughout one summer. They were living at a campground and doing their weekly shopping at the pantry.
One week the mother related: “I’m really stressed out today. I don’t know where we’re going to go. We got evicted because I don’t have the money to pay the camping fee. The lady next to us gave me $5 for gas because we had to leave.”
I don’t know what happened to them. I never saw them again.
Thanks for reading this blog. There are many, many stories to share here.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Everyone is Different – at Least in Woodstock, Anyway: 26 Reasons For Homelessness
For a time, our trusted Gene Huckle was even homeless. His partner, Nancy died and her children didn’t want him in the house he and Nancy had lived in together for many years. He fought them for over a year with a lawyer, several trips to court and the whole enchilada. He finally moved out and ended up homeless for a time. Gene eventually got housing through a homeless veterans program. I helped him move his clothes and things over to his new apartment in Saugerties.
Homelessness cannot be generalized. Each homeless person is a special personality and has a special situation which s/he deals with. So here’s my rule about homeless people:
if you’ve seen one homeless person, you’ve seen one homeless person.
They come to be homeless for many reasons:
abusive relationship
addiction
being kicked out of home or feeling unwanted at home
decline in available public assistance
domestic violence
eviction
family breakdown
gambling
home foreclosure
lack of affordable child care for low income families
lack of affordable health care
lack of availability of suitable housing
lack of employment opportunities
lack of ongoing support services
loss of benefits
mental illness
overcrowding
poor or no communication tools to include cell phone, computer access, physical address for receiving mail
poor credit
poor or no transportation
release from jail/prison
release from military service
sexual abuse
significant illness in the family
substance or drug abuse
lack of affordable childcare for poor working families
Thank you for reading this post. In the next post, we will learn about yet another homeless person and a homeless family.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Volunteers Make Our Pantry Special
Arlen arrived the next day and proceeded to prepare a carload of fresh veggies and fruits for the shoppers. That day was such a gift! Our shoppers went home with perfect produce: no yellow leaves, no soft spots, no carrot tops. Everything was ready to prepare…just as if it had been bought at Gracie Balducci’s, Whole Foods, or Trader Joe’s. WOW!
On top of that, Arlen conversed with the shoppers in their native language: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Haitian, Creole, Esperanto.
From that day on, whenever Arlen was in Woodstock, he worked in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry. He made us all feel our pantry was special because we’re a vegetarian agency. Arlen is a vegan and absolutely will not touch anything animal based.
So how is Arlen homeless? Well, he moves around a lot and has a selection of friends who host him when he’s in their area. When Arlen arrives, there’s always a flurry of activity because he participates in every area event. When we had our first festival fundraiser, Arlen was on hand to help put up the tents, keep the grounds clean, etc. He offers the same enthusiasm to his hosts. Arlen makes himself an integral part of any place he stays.
And, Arlen truly is a part of any place he’s visiting. When Holly, his Woodstock hostess, put her house on the market to move to Rosendale, Arlen was upset. “Holly’s got her house for sale and we’re moving to Rosendale” he said with feeling. Wherever Holly goes, Arlen is going, too. I’m sure that, although Arlen will miss Woodstock, he and Rosendale will love each other.
Thanks for reading this post. Tomorrow’s post will focus on yet another homeless person we know as well as some of the causes of homelessness.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Meet a Special Woodstock Resident
In the last post, I introduced you to Fancy Pants.
After Fancy Pants explained about his kitchen being in his shirt pocket, we tried to keep individual serving cups of applesauce, jars of peanut butter, boxes of crackers, individual serving cans of food with pop top lids, cereal bars, etc. The HPNAP people made sure we had access to fresh fruits and vegetables that can be eaten raw such as apples, blueberries, apricots, carrots, celery, bell peppers, strawberries.
Some of these homeless shoppers were shy about their situation and didn’t want the world at large to know about their lifestyle. Unsuspecting congregational volunteers in the pantry often urged the homeless shoppers to select food which they couldn’t prepare. Rather than reveal their living situation to the volunteers, the homeless people would take the food.
Occasionally, we found it on the ground outside the pantry at the end of the day. Other times, they took the food to friends with kitchens.
I finally made the decision that our volunteers in the pantry room needed to be a permanent team of people who would know the shoppers more intimately than someone who just showed up once or twice every year or two. This was a real turn off to some of the congregational volunteers and the congregations themselves and I was criticized throughout the community for it. However, I felt it was necessary for the dignity of the shoppers. This was just one more in a long line of decisions that made me no friends in the community. However, the volunteers who worked in the pantry on a daily basis understood.
Not all homeless people shopped at the pantry weekly like Fancy Pants. Arlen came to our pantry periodically when he was in town. Arlen was a very well educated gray haired gentleman with a poly tail.
“Can I volunteer at your pantry tomorrow? I know about food and can help you” Arlen asked politely one summer day as he visited our pantry for the first time.
We’ll learn more about Arlen in the next post. Please join in.
Thanks for reading this blogged book.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
The Homeless Shopper – Part 1: How Do You Cook Without a Kitchen?
THE HOMELESS SHOPPER
“Homeless is not a category of people. It’s just a situation that happens. It can happen to anyone.” – Salvador Altamirano-Segura
This post is the first of 8 focusing on homelessness.
Woodstock has more than its share of homeless people. One reason, I feel, is the community has a way of respecting or not respecting a person regardless of whether or not a roof is involved. Some of my absolute favorite shoppers were homeless shoppers who visited the pantry weekly.
One of the Good Neighbor Food Pantry’s regular homeless shoppers came into the pantry one day during a lull and taught me the rules of feeding the homeless. I suppose he was tired of coming to the pantry and not finding enough food to take away with him because Fancy Pants visited the pantry weekly and depended on what he found in this small room for his food. He was a very upbeat guy who saw as much positive in life as he could in spite of the fact that he spent the nights of his life on the floor of the bathroom in Town Hall. The place had no heat so he definitely was cold in the winter. However, even with the cold, hard floor, he was protected from the rain, snow, sleet.
His girlfriend came to the pantry with him each week. They made a date of it. He really loved her. This beautiful woman had a multiple personality disorder and was a different person with each pantry visit. And, of course, that was exactly what Fancy Pants loved about her.
Fancy Pants kept himself well hidden behind a lot of facial hair and baggy clothing. It was definitely hard to tell what he looked like underneath all the costumery. However, try as he might, he simply could not hide his intelligence, his outgoing attitude toward the world he lived in, and his love of life in general.
“The dietary needs of the homeless are different from those of people in all other categori
Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 3 – We Meet at Bread Alone
In the last post, I wrote about a Korean War Veteran.
The second man – tall, handsome, had a generous head of solid white wavy hair. He came up to me one day in Bread Alone.
“I want to shake your hand. I worked all my life. When I was laid off recently, I realized that I’m never going to work again. If it weren’t for your efforts in the pantry, I would be going hungry.”
George, while he had white hair, was not yet old enough for social security. So, he relied on unemployment, food stamps and the pantry. The hope in these cases is always that the unemployment insurance will last until the social security kicks in.
He was the first pantry shopper to speak to me outside the pantry. Such was the stigma of the pantry. I called it the “Shame Factor.” I began fighting this condition by going into Bread Alone every day and getting a cop of coffee. After a while, pantry shoppers began to say “hello.”
Hurray!
Bread Alone, the local coffee house, is owned by Dan Leader, a very upscale baker who bakes bread and pastries not only for Woodstock but all over New York.
Dan Leader and his family moved to Boiceville in 1983 to bake organic breads in a wood-fired oven. Five years later, Bread Alone included a café, a pastry room, and a cook book he wrote and published.
Bread Alone is visited by wealthy tourists and upscale residents. Pantry shoppers also visit Bread Alone in the mornings in Woodstock and sit around a table in the back enjoying the warmth of the room, the good coffee, a comfortable place to sit and talk.
Thank you for reading this post, this blogged book. I hope you are enjoying the story. The next post will be the last part in the section introducing the food pantry. This post will offer a peek at trouble brewing at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock
Bread
Meet Woodstock’s Food Pantry – Part 2 – A Shopper Touches My Heart and Soul
As the numbers escalated, I saw more and more hard working people struggling with the reality of not having any money for food after they bought the gas needed to get to a minimum wage job. I served people just laid off from a job who I knew would never work again. Seriously ill people came for food when they had no money left because every dime had gone to pay the medical bills. People came in traumatized when their homes were foreclosed or destroyed because of Hurricane Irene and Sandy.
For the most part, I accepted everyone as they presented themselves. Unless they were frightening to the volunteers, they were absolutely okay. In fact, I loved them all…even the aggressive ones.
Only 2 shoppers ever really “got to me”. I learned through these 2 men that there were weak spots in my shell after all.
The first was an older man who came into the pantry wearing a baseball cap which read “Korean War Veteran”. I simply could not then and cannot now come to terms with the fact that this man, who put his life on the line in the very brutal Korean conflict in the early 1950s is now, as an old man, reduced to standing in a food pantry line.
“Our country simply needs to have more respect for those we send to the front lines.” I could be heard muttering to any nearby volunteer after each of his visits. “Seeing this man just makes me want to take a pitchfork and head for Washington, D.C.” At the back of my mind was the realization that pantries throughout our country have not yet begun to really see the returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thank you for reading this post. It has been and continues to be an honor to serve the hungry.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
The Beginning – Part 3: Matthew Gives His Job Away
Hands down, the most enthusiastic congregation was St. John’s. They usually had 4-6 volunteers each week when it was their congregation’s turn and managed to get the most donated food. It helped that St. John’s had the largest congregation of all the churches in town. It also helped that Fr. George always came to the pantry when it was St. John’s turn and enthusiastically brought food.
The Coordinator of the Good Neighbor Food Pantry was Fr. Charlie’s partner, Matthew. Fr. Charlie, the priest at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, got a fancy new job in the Bloomington, Indiana, area.
One of the first things he and Matthew did, even before they spoke about the new job to the congregation, was get new wardrobes, new hairdos, put their houses on the market, and assign the job of pantry coordinator to me.
“Hi Thurman. Come over and sit by me tonight.” Matthew said as we ate the potluck supper after communion one Wednesday evening. Matthew had never, never, never asked me to sit by him. But, what did I know?
“I’d like you to be the next coordinator at the pantry. I have a box of files right here for you. It’s actually very easy. All you do is pass the key from one congregation to the next every month. I’ll call the Food Bank and give them your name.”
I was totally delighted! “Matthew, I’m flattered! Thank you for this opportunity. Do you have any advice for me?”
“Yes, actually, I do. Never give away the key. No matter what. Isn’t this quiche delicious?”
Thanks for reading this post. I hope you found the story so far to be interesting. Looking back on this whole story, I ask myself: If I’d known then what I know now, would I have been so flattered, so ready to say “Yes. Or would I have run off faster than Speedy Gonzalez?’
Then answer to my question is this: “I would’ve stood my ground.”
