Denis Dugan
I was upset when I heard the announcement that the subways would be shut down overnight — not only because I have been sleeping on the subways for two years, but because of the dehumanizing language used to refer to myself and other homeless New Yorkers.
With too few resources and workers out there to help the homeless, Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo are taking away the only safe place some people have at night. Everybody wants to talk about the “disgusting” homeless population and how we are getting in the way of “essential” New Yorkers, as if homeless people are expendable New Yorkers.
Contrary to what you may hear from the media, politicians and even our fellow New Yorkers, not all homeless people are disgusting and disease infected. You would think, in a pandemic, one would see some empathy and compassion. You would hope that people would begin to see that anyone can find themselves in our shoes.
Homelessness can come without notice, and out of nowhere. You can become homeless so fast that you have not even processed it until that moment when you are sitting on a park bench, alone, jobless, carrying your belongings in a bag too weak to hold everything you jammed into it, with the cold air and drizzling rain hitting you in the face. You sit there, stomach in knots, wondering how this all went wrong so darn fast.
Basic tasks become a challenge: When you have to use the bathroom, nobody is going to let your “disgusting” homeless body use their restroom. So where do you go? You try a shelter, only to find out it feels like jail. You do not feel safe there, and your very last belongings in the entire world are at risk of being stolen.
Some of us utilize the subway as a last resort because we know, if we do doze off for a bit, we may get robbed, but more times than not we won’t because there are always witnesses around.
Ultimately, I want what many people take for granted: a safe, private space, somewhere I can protect myself from coronavirus. Right now, thousands of hotel rooms are empty because of the shutdown. Why not use them to shelter homeless people like me? It would be life-changing and help me move forward. But instead of being offered a hotel room, I am offered to return to the shelter. I truly fear the shelters.
With the subways shutting down and no real offer of a safe place to go, I’m not sure where I’ll sleep the next few weeks. Without the option of the subways, many homeless people are going to be put in unsafe situations when trains shut overnight; some may lose hope entirely. Sometimes it seems like that’s what the MTA and the politicians want: for homeless people to give up and feel like they are better off dead.
I want my fellow New Yorkers to know what happens once you are viewed as one of the homeless. Other people start talking about you on television, on radio, and in person as if you are a class of human being unworthy of the same oxygen everyone else is using.
This narrative has made our city even more dangerous for us in recent years. We get spit on, smacked while we are asleep, harassed by police and civilians, and so many other things, because people think it’s okay to treat us as “less than.” People assume that because we are homeless, we are below everyone else, and we don’t deserve comfort, compassion or warmth. We are the scourge of society, worse than criminals, and we deserve to be tormented. It feels like we have nobody sticking up for us, and not one person with any power is coming to our rescue.
We really are viewed as subhuman, and it scares the heck out of me.
