November 10, 2015 New York Daily News By Mary Brosnahan NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton doled out some harsh advice this week. With the shelter population trending upwards after months of steady decline – and the number of people living on our streets continuing to surge – Bratton opined that his “… best advice to the citizens of New York City – if (poor people begging) is so upsetting to you, don’t give.” “One of the quickest ways to get rid of them is not to give to them,” he added. Really, Commissioner? You’re a smart guy. Do you really think that the thousands of New Yorkers suffering in our parks and subway stations will pick up sticks and leave if we all agree to give them a collective cold shoulder? I’ve been working at the Coalition for the Homeless for nearly 30 years and one thing I learned early on: If the homeless men and women sleeping on our streets had ANY other option – any other place to go to – they would already be there. No one wants to be homeless. Virtually every homeless person living on the streets of our city has had some experience sleeping at a municipal shelter. Again and again they experience this harsh reality: The most frail – especially those with physical impairments or obvious mental illnesses – are the first to be preyed upon. Sadly, the largest and most chaotic shelters for single adults remain at the front end of the system. The old Bellevue Hospital, with 850 beds. The hulking Bedford-Atlantic Armory with 350 beds. The human warehouses moored on Wards Island in the middle of the East River hold over 1,200 men each night. After being abused or physically assaulted, mentally-ill men and women too often make what they consider to be a rational choice: To go it alone referring the relative safety of a solitary, nomadic existence – their lives reduced to mere survival, with scant hope of ever knowing the warmth of a real home again. Commissioner Bratton, your suggestion is not just factually flawed – it’s also morally bankrupt. Like any good Catholic schoolboy, I’m sure you embrace the most fundamental tenet of our faith: Listen to your conscience. I can’t tell another person to give or not give to another human who is suffering in our midst – that decision is his or hers alone. The real tragedy is that we are forced to play God on virtually every street corner – left to decide who we’re able to help. Like millions of others in our city, my first and overriding concern and commitment is to my child. And watching my son, Quinn, grow up has given me – like so many other parents – a crash course in Developmental Psychology crossed with Survival Skills 101. Every parent wants to protect their son or daughter, until they’re old enough to understand that seeing another person, day in and day out, living without shelter from the elements, without a safe place into which they can retreat each night, is neither the norm or remotely acceptable. Quinn was the 4-year-old asking, “Why doesn’t that man have a place to go?” Or he would ask, “Why does that woman have to carry all her stuff?” “They look so sick,” he would say. “Why can’t they come home with us?” He was also the 6-year-old, on a frigid, rainy morning, reminding me, when my mind was a thousand miles away from anything having to do with poverty or housing policy, “Mommy, today is not a good day to be homeless.” He was the 8-year-old who later confessed that he was “really scared” that the man with a horribly disfigured face “could have robbed us,” when we stopped to buy him a sandwich at our local deli. This was a few weeks after his father (my husband) died. “Daddy’s not here to protect us anymore….” Quinn turned 13 just two weeks ago. Even he understands that the people who sometimes have loud conversations with invisible companions aren’t able to defend themselves in massive shelters. He already “gets” that the solution – the only thing that will actually make a difference in the gauntlet we all run each day – is permanent, supportive housing. Commissioner Bratton, you’ve spoken eloquently about the hand we were dealt by Mayor Bloomberg, when he cut off all housing options for homeless New Yorkers – how that was the main driving force behind the huge and unprecedented problem we now face. My only advice is this: Don’t underestimate the people of this great city. They know the quick fix solutions may make good sound bites, but they rarely work. What will work? Housing – with onsite support services. It’s what turned the tide back in the early 1980s, when Mayor Dinkins and Governor Mario Cuomo agreed to fund the first “New York-New York” agreement to build thousands of units of supportive housing. We desperately need your boss – Mayor de Blasio – and Governor Andrew Cuomo to commit to funding 30,000 new units of supportive housing over the next decade. We need your leadership to remind them both that before they sit down in a couple of weeks to thank God for all their blessings, we need them to step up – big time – and do the right thing. Mary Brosnahan is the president and CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless. This piece originally appeared in the New York Daily News.
