Homeless Women

Homeless Women ANN MARIE ROUSSEAU

Who are the homeless women huddled in the doorways, train stations and parks of New York City? Called shopping-bag ladies because they carry all their possessions in bags, they roam the streets—alone, isolated and without the basic necessity of sheltershelter. In a world where myths of marriage and motherhood tell us women are protected in the homehome, these women symbolize our worst fears about women who do not, or cannot, fit into a society that values production and work.

The Shelter Care Center for Women is a temporary residence for homeless women in New York City. It costs the city over 560 a day per woman to keep 47 women at the Shelter. This pays for the rent of the building and for a full-time staff of 50 who provide social work and other services.

In connection with a community arts project sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum, I have been teaching an art class at the Shelter. The following excerpts are from taped conversations with some of the women staying there. The photographs were taken by the women who participated in my classes.

Adele Raiffen, found sleeping on the subways, was brought to the Shelter by the police. She comes from Boston, where her father was a lawyer, and unlike many of the Shelter women, Adele went to college. She majored in religion and managed her life reasonably well until her last year in school.

When I started reading the New Testament I certainly wasn't seeking God and probably 95 percent of my fellow students weren't either. But I began hearing the words of Jesus and I saw that I was not cleansed in the eyes of the Lord. I started to get really upset and I found I couldn't cope. It was at this time that l decided to jump out of the window. This was pretty dumb, but it was a very definite decision. I had definitely given up on life. I thought I was mad. I ended up staying in the local infirmary for a while and then they put me in a mental hospital for two years.

About five years ago a government policy turned out thousands of people from state mental hospitals in the name of hu manity and reform. People who had spent years passively being cared for in institutions were abruptly left to fend for themselves on welfare.

When they let me out I moved into a hotel and lived there for a number of years. I had a great many emotional problems and a chronic drinking problem that had been going on for five years. I was pretty unhappy. Everyone was a chronic alcoholicalcoholic like myself and the discipline wasn't very great. Most of the people came and went out of the local hospital.

Most of the women cannot find or hold jobs. Often they are placed in welfare hotels where their checks are lost or stolen or they are unsuccessful in budgeting their money. These city-financed hotels are poorly kept places of despair and misery. Pimps, addicts and junkies hang out in the lobbies and the women fear being robbed and assaulted.homelessness threat Worst of all is the loneliness. There are few programs to reach the many people isolated inside their rooms. Without treatment or any kind of community or family support, problems of mental illness intensify.

I felt that I had already accepted Jesus as the truth and the only salvation, so I was drawn to visit a church fellowship house that was nearby. This was a nationally organized Christian fel lowship house where people lived together in very tight communal situations where they could receive the word of God. Pretty soon I decided to move in. It was a good move. They knew that living together in a tight situation often makes somebody grow very fast, and I did that for a while. I grew very fast, but after two weeks l had to go into the hospital again. When I came out, I decided to go back to this same house and things went pretty well until two weeks later when I started another drinking bingealcoholic by drinking all of the vanilla in the house. When I did that, I ran out and ran down the street and I thought, "Well, I've replaced vanilla bottles on a Sunday morning before. This is no sweat. This is real easy." And that was it. I couldn't stand one more moment of hunting down vanilla bottles. I guess it was the love l had for other people. So I prayed, "God, I'm too tired to drink anymore. You just gotta do something about it, and I turned around and I ran home and told my pastor about it. From that day forward I didn't take a drink in that house. After a while I decided to leave that house because I had obviously been cured and no longer needed the fellowship of Christian people. I thought I could do well enough on my own and I wanted my own life. I came to New York to visit friends and I stayed with my sister and her family. Ithink I was pretty unhappyunhappy at the time. Pretty lost at sealost. think a lot of people come to New York to be alone with them- selves or something; to cut off ties with people they know. It's kind of a self-destructive thing to do, to come to New York without any concrete plans and I might have been doing that. My sister is pretty happily married and sometimes we've been very close, but I was not finding a way to live with the contentions going on around me. I wasn't able to cope with people who had never met Jesus. My sister was one of those people, and it became very hard for me to cope. You see I'm basically a back-sliding Christian. For about a year now I've felt God's kind of desertedlonely me, but His word is still pretty faithful, and in my sister's house I wasn't finding a way to live, so essentially I guess I ran away. I just upped and left one day.

While it is estimated that there are as many as 3,000 home less women wandering around New York City, the Women's Shelter has only 47 beds. Last year more than 2,000 women were turned away. Close to 800 were accepted and stayed anywhere from one day to several months.homelessness

I stayed in the park and I wandered around for a I don't remember how I found the Shelter. Maybe through the grapevine. Iwasn't thinking too clearly then. Im hoping to get on welfare, or maybe I could get a job as a salesgirl somewhere. For tunately or unfortunately I don't drink anymorealcoholic. It doesn't seem to be a problem. There are too many other things to occupy my mind. Occasionally when I get desperate, I head for a bar or something, but usually Istop in midstream and change my mind.

The goal of the Shelter is to provide a short-term residence where women can be helped and then returned to the community or placed in an appropriate institution,homeless shelter but the recidivism rate runs to 50 percent. The women do not get the kind of help they need at the Shelter or anywhere else.

Selma Lyons is 46. She has spent most of her life in mental institutions or nursing homes.

You see the thing was like my mother. She had a problem drinking, and she didn't get along with my dad. So when they split up the family they just made the kids wards of the court. There were nine of us and I was right in the middle. My younger brothers and sisters went to the orphan home, but I got sent up. You know youre supposed to get a trial of some sort before they send you to state hospital, but I didn't get none.! never seen the judge. They just decided to send me up. They didn't say why. They didn't say much of anything. They just said something about going for a long nice ride and enjoying the scenery. You know they don't tell you nothing. They took me up there and when we got there they told me where it was after they locked me up. After I got there, the doctors that talked to me got maddel than hell for them to bring me there because I was only fourteen and the patients that were there were mostly either forty or fifty. and he said he liked to have the person that sent me there for one hour and call him dirty names. Most of the patients there were old people. I was the only young one. That makes a big difference being a young person and then being with so many old people. I stayed in the hospital that first time three or four months until they asked me a lot of questions and they figured I was okay. Then they sent me back to a nursing home in Quincy. See, in Illinois when people get out of state hospitals sometimes they send them to nursing homes with full privileges and all. But my mother started coming round and asking for my money and stuff. She told me to come over and see her, so I went and brought her a sack of groceries. She didn't like me staying at the home, and I just figured, well, I'll stay at my mother's. So I stayed at my mother's house and all of a sudden a policeman came down saying he was going to take me to jail because I was still a ward of the court, see. And I wasn't supposed to be at my mother's. Course I didn't know cause the law don't tell kids anything anyway. So they took me to jail and they had a new judge. Came in. He said, "You ain't guilty of nothing, there's no charges against you," and he said, "I got some real nice people where you can live with them, real nice, that'Il treat you right, treat you decent and everything. So he introduced me to the Parsons, see, and the Parsons decided to get me a job. He was a guy that worked for the state and he went around helping teenagers get jobs. He just loved teenagers, working day and night to help them. He got me a job at the Pepsi-Cola plant working on an assembly line sorting bottles. Istayed there about four months and then the boss said l wasn't able to keep up, you know, work fast enough. So he said that being he liked me he'd keep me a month longer because he hated to, you know, see me go.

The only alternative to the streets available for many people is an institution.

Later on when I was older they let me go to St. Louis to live with my mother in the boarding house she ran. I lived there for a while but my mother had a drinking problem. I couldn't understand her too well. So one night I decided to go to Kansas. When they picked me up they found out that I once was at the state hospital by questioning, so they kept me in the hospital in Kansas for three months and then they transferred me back to the hospital in Illinois. At the hospital they sent me out to a workshop where I folded bags and put them in a little packet. I got $18 a month but l didn't keep my money. I did good deeds. See, I lived on a ward where nobody had soda or cigarettes, nothing. I'd go out and bring back somebody a jar of coffee and we'd have coffee and play cards. I don't like no kind of institution but I figure if l'm going to live there I'm going to do good to the patients. One time I decided to go to San Francisco. I cashed in my Social Security check and got a bus. It was a nice trip. I went to look at the ocean, sat on the beach for a while and had me a cheese sandwich with several different kinds of cheese and French bread. That was real nice, but when I was in the bus station I left my purse on the bench and went over to look out the window. When I came back it was gone, so I didn't have another cent left to me. After a while a policeman came over to me, real nice, and he says, "Anything I can do for ya?" I says, "No, I don't want to tell you my problems. I don't want to cause you no trouble, but back home everybody talks about California. How great California is." He said, "You'd better believe California's great." He said, "We help people, the people help us. He said, "Now is there anything I can do for you?" and I told him that I lost my purse and he said, "Well, I'll just send you over to this Catholic place. They'll keep you till your check comes, or else they'll send you to another place till you can get back on your feet." So I went over to the Catholic place and they kept me for a while, but then they sent me back to Illinois, to the home. It's horrible in the home. When they put you in an institution they practically destroy your life completely. When you're young and you have to be around people that are old. You figure you can be classified, say, with them. It gets to you. Here I am. Ain't done nothing. Ain't been nowhere. Course I've done a few things, but if I have to spend all my life in institutions, well, I won't be putting nothing into life. I won't be getting nothing out of life. One of the patients in the home used to talk about San Francisco, so l'd been to San Francisco, and there was another patient who talked a lot about New York, so I thought, well, I'll go to New York. l'd always heard about a store called Macy's. I heard it was a block long and I thought l'd like to see that! The buses had a 550 special. Usually it costs about $100 to go to New York, but they had a special where you can go anywhere for S50 or less. I thought I'm not going to have this bargain probably never again in my life so I might as well take it now. I cashed in my SSI check again and came to New York. I didn't pack much. I just took what I wanted to take and left everything there. I didn't tell no one, cause every time you'd start to talk about doing something they'd talk you out of it. So I never mentioned nothing. Every time anyone gets inspired to do some thing or be something at the home they'd talk so much that you're not going to be anything or do anything, and that's why you'd give up. So I never talked much.

There are no outreach programs to contact the many homeless women who don't know about the Shelter. When a woman does not qualify or when the Shelter is full, the only alternative for someone without funds or a place to stay is the Emergency Assistance Unit of the Department of Social Services. There, a woman can sit on a chair all night.

My money was stolen on the bus I think. See, I forgot to close my purse and I left it on the chair next to me, and there was a kid right across. Later on, about ten minutes later, I was gonna smoke a cigarette and I looked in my purse and the money was gone. All I had was a dollar bill. When I got to New York I went up to an officer and told him my money was stolen, so he referred me to a place where people sit all night long. It was a small room with people sleeping on chairs. The next morning they sent me to welfare, but welfare refused to help me because I was on SSI. Eventually I found the Women's Shelter, I couldn't get in at first, but I did after a few days.

Homeless men are treated differently. At the Men's Shelter they are given chits entitling them to a free meal and a flophouse bed. Although the flophouse hotels may not be as institutionally neat and clean as the Women's Shelter, there is room for thousands of men. They are almost never denied a bed.

At one time if a woman with children found herself without a place to stay, she was allowed to keep her children with her in a family shelter. Now, a mother who needs help and has nowhere to live must put her children in placement until she can get on welfare or find some means of supporting herself and her children.

Hanna Schaeffler was born in Brooklyn. She was adopted when she was two and knows nothing about her real parents. Her adoptive parents separated when she was five.

At first I lived with my mother. She was having a great many personal problems at that time and couldn't cope with anything. so when I was in the sixth grade she sent me to Bay Shore to live with her sister. That was a nice home life for me and I stayed there for two years. I don't really know what my mother's problems were. She couldn't straighten out her life, her bills, her boyfriend. When I came back she had gotten rid of her boyfriend, but something had happened to me. I didn't want to go to school be cause I was getting pimples. I became silent and quiet and wouldn't take a bath or anything. My mother didn't understand then. It got to the point where I practically couldn't do anything and my mother didn't make me. When I went to school I kept dropping.to the bottom. I had no interest. I was a very confused person. My mother later signed me out to go to work. I lived at the Simmons House for a few years and during that time I had several office jobs, but I was never really happy.I started becoming depressed and having a lot of problems. It was at that time that I met the man l've been living with for the past three years. He used to hang around the Simmons House looking for girls. When I met him, I had just left my last boyfriend and was very lonely. He insisted I move in with him right away. I didn't want to but I gave in. I was very weak then. I had no mind of my own and would allow myself to be led any way withou really knowing what I wanted. Things were okay for a while, but then I got pregnant and that messed everything up. I had to give up my job and I began staying home. My boyfriend really wanted to have me like maid in the house and to have other women outside. Sometimes he would stay away the whole weekend and not say anything about where he had been. At night I never knew if he would be coming home or not. When I asked him what he did, he said it was none of my business. Getting women seemed to be all he thought about. I once heard him telling his friends that his biggest dream is to get an answering service and to come home and turn on his answering service and then go out with whoever he wants. I felt like I was going crazy because I had no outlet. My only girlfriend is in the building, and then I found out that my boy friend was trying to turn everyone against me. He was telling her that I never did anything, even the laundry, and that I was lazy and good for nothing. When I found that out, I was so hurt about the way he spoke about me, about the way he was getting a car and locking me in that I didn't know what to do. Everything got to be too much. That's when I tore up the furniture. One morning I took a knife and tore it all to pieces. couldn't take it anymore. I tried to get out, but there was no choice. Ihad stood it for as long as I could and then that morning I ripped everything to shreds. My mind was very calm. I don't even remember where my little boy was at that moment. Some times I wonder what he saw. I know he knew something was up because later I saw him looking at the couch, just staring, like he knew something was wrong. The police said I should go see a social worker, but I didn't know where to go. After that my boyfriend was saying he was going to beat me up. Iheard about a free community legal service voar where I lived so I went over there. They told me I should go to family court. It was difficult. Iwas very mixed up and I didn't know what to do. I did a lot of things wrong. I took out a paternity suit and they took away my birth certificates. I was twing to get myself on welfare at the same time—going from place to place carrying the children. I couldn't get welfare because they said I was being supported by my boyfriend and then I didn't have my birth certificates because they were at the court, and I was running all over waiting in this place and that one with the babies in my arms. The social worker said I should come to the Women's Shelter and put the boys in foster care until I got more straightened out, solthought that would be the best thing to do. It was pretty hard to give them up. I placed them to get self-sufficient. The first time I got to visit my boy after he was placed in foster care was like I was in another world. When I saw him I suddenly couldn't even hear what the people around me were saying and I was looking at him. Then I had to go into the bathroom to hide my crying. My oldest boy acted shy at first, like he didn't recognize me, but then I played with him a little and he was better. They say that the first few nights he didn't eat or sleep at all. They had a lot of trouble with him because he was so upset. The little baby seemed to be okay. He didn't really recognize me but sometimes I used to make a funny little noise at him with mythroat, and he always made the noise back. This time when I made the noise he looked at me and he made it back, so I guess he did recognize that.

Some women spend lifetimes in a cycle moving from mental hospitals to the Women's Shelter to welfare hotels, to the street and back into a hospital or the Shelter. For other women, there is perhaps a small hope that through luck or endurance they will eventually carve out a reasonable life for themselves. These are the women who have left within themselves some resources of strength and enough will to fight for the scraps of help offered by individuals and social agencies.

Adele was placed on welfare and expects to go into a welfare hotel.

I'm not very happy about going into the hotel, but there aoesn't seem to be anything else I can do. I'll be okay as long as my drinking problem doesn't come back. I'm waiting for the will ofthe Lord.

Selma would like to get a job, but with little education and no skills, she has little hope.

If I can't get an apartment and a part-time job in New York, I guess I'll have to go back to the home. I don't know if I'll be able woget a job or not. It's like you have to give up or something. Like there's nothing you can do. It's practically impossible for me to get out of this situation. My only choice is to be in the home with bunch of mental patients in a workshop, and that's not a real job. That's nothing. There ain't really nothing for me, just institu

Hanna is struggling to establish a home for her children.

I won't get them back until I have something to stand on—a job. The children's agency is helping me. Maybe I could get into a nurses aid program or something, as long as I don't have to go back to him. I never want to get married or to live with any man again. I don't think men are necessary for me. I just want my children back and to have a home and a dog and to go to church on Sunday. The whole bit. I hope I'll get everything straightened out. I'm tired of suffering and going around in circles.