No Shelter from the Storm
The Homeless Fall Through the Cracks as We Debate Coronavirus Protections
The Homeless Fall Through the Cracks as We Debate Coronavirus Protections
Eight men camped outside the Alexander Library on College Avenue on the Rutgers University campus. They had nowhere else to go. Coffee shops were closed. The libraries and train stations off limits. But they persist, or try to.
I don’t know how long they’d been there. I had never seen them despite passing the library twice a week on my way from the student center to the School of Communications building where I teach an introduction to journalism class. But I haven’t been on campus in over a month, since before spring break, since my last in-person class on March 12.
The coronavirus had begun its spread, and the state was slowly moving into crisis mode, closing down schools and businesses. We took a short trip to South Carolina and Georgia, flew back, and have been sheltered in our home since. I work with students online these days, only travel between my house and the grocery store, maybe a local restaurant offering take out. And watch the news.
As I write this, there are protests taking place around the country complaining about the social-distancing rules being imposed. Organizers claim these “events” are spontaneous, that they are a grassroots uprising against government overreach, but it’s clear they are not — they are AstroTurf efforts, driven by organized right-wing groups in coordination with big money and the Republican Party. Their demand: Re-open the economy, reopen businesses, move back to business as usual.
These protesters are largely white. They are middle class. They are conservative. Their arguments are the arguments of privilege. They have some distance from the dangers of the disease, or so they think, or they have bought into the odd mix of dismissiveness and paranoia that has come to mark the bulk of Trump supporters. These, for the most part, are people with choices.
This is not the case for the homeless population around the nation. They lack the choices the rest of us take for granted. They will not be helped by a premature easing of restrictions or a return to so-called normality. Perhaps they would once again gain access to the local Starbucks, but they would remain invisible and vulnerable.
Walter Herres has been working the streets, doing outreach, trying to help those who live in the shadows. Herres has been homeless and now advocates for the homeless in the New Brunswick area through his group SHILO (Supporting Homeless Innovative Loving Others). He told me New Brunswick police removed homeless from near the public library on Sunday, threatening them with arrest. This matches a national trend of cities criminalizing the homeless rather than finding them housing. (I wrote about this issue for In These Times.)
The homeless can act “like there is no pandemic,” mostly because they lack access to services and information.”How do you stay home without a home,” he said.
That’s where the outreach comes in. They’ve been distributing cards outlining the Centers for Disease Control guidelines and advocating for ways to get the homeless off the streets. The focus, he said, is to create shelters, make use of motels, and to get housing vouchers into their hands. The goal, he said, is permanent housing.
SHILO posted a petition critical of the “lack of sheltered, non-congregate beds in New Brunswick,” which is leaving much of the city’s homeless community even more vulnerable than normal. There are about 200 homeless individuals in the city, which accounts for about half lf all homeless people in Middlesex County.
“Most of the homeless population have neither adequate spaces to self-quarantine nor proper access to healthcare, thus greatly increasing their risk and the risk of all residents of being exposed to COVID-19,” the petition says. “The current shelter system in the city is not prepared to house these people safely in ways that prevent further infection, and it is imperative for the city to make existing public and private housing options available for homeless people during this crisis.”
The petition calls for additional local funding, though that money probably should come from the state and county because homelessness is not a local problem. It’s systemic, but manifests itself in urban centers like New Brunswick where there is a higher concentration of people, transit, and other facilities.
SHILO also points out that Gov. Phil Murphy’s shelter-in-place order, which has been necessary to stem the spread of the virus, “has had the subsequent effect of shutting down coffee shops, restaurants, libraries, and train stations — some of the only public spaces where homeless people have been able to wash their hands, use the bathroom, access the internet, and conduct other basic life functions.” The homeless, SHILO says, cannot easily comply shelter-in-place orders because they lack shelter, or a safe shelter.
The homeless, SHILO says, are feeling “widespread anxiety and confusion.”
“There has been little communication from public health officials, and access to hygienic resources like gloves, hand sanitizer, and disinfectants has been provided only through organizations like SHILO,” the organization says. “For a community that already faces an intense amount of vulnerability and stigma, the continued failure of the emergency management system to address their unique needs during this crisis will leave them directly in the path of a virus of which they have virtually no means to seek treatment for.”
The homeless can seem an invisible population to some. To others, the homeless are a nuisance. But the reality is that they are just the product of an economic system that only values human beings if they can contribute to the bottom line. Those who cannot, for whatever reason, are viewed as a burden.
As I write this, secure in my kitchen, I wonder about the many homeless men and women I’ve met over the last decade. One, Ryan, a guy in his mid-20s, would hang around the lobby of the former Fresh Grocer and SuperFresh on Albany Street in New Brunswick. The store has been closed for more than a year, but it is the main access to the main city parking garage. Ryan would hit people up for a couple of dollars — I tried to give him a few, a couple singles, a five, every time I saw him. His story was typical, but also particular: He lost his job and broke up with a girlfriend. He got depressed, started drinking, abused medications but not the kind of hard drugs that do in so many. Something about the kid stuck with me. Perhaps it was his age, this sense that he should have his whole life ahead of him, or that he was just a skinny kid from suburban Edison, that he was like so many of the people with whom I’d grown up. Life’s difficulties hit each of opus in different ways. Ryan allowed his difficulties to derail his life, like so many.
I reached out to a friend who lives in New Brunswick, who had been homeless in the past but now is nearing completion of his bachelor’s and is working as a reporter. He knows Ryan, saw him a couple of weeks ago. He was working the same patch of ground, still living out of his back pack. He didn’t know much more than that.