I’m usually skeptical when I see a homeless man holding up a sign that claims he’s a veteran of the United States military. If true, the tug on the heartstrings would be too powerful and the shame of ignoring a man who had put himself in harm’s way for the sake of his people and his country would be too much to bear. It’s much easier to assume that he’s playing on our emotions in order to score easy dollars.
Something compelled me to stop and turn around, however. It was the first time I’d seen homeless couple. His wife had buried herself in his shoulder, hiding her face from world. The temperature was 27F and I was feeling the bite of the cold in my fingers, yet here was this couple, sitting on 42nd street between Madison and 5th, hoping that someone would stop and help them. They were largely ignored and I was about to ignore them, myself.
I asked him if he was okay (his wife showed no interest in my presence) and he said, “We’re hanging in there.” I asked him if it was okay I talked to him and sat down next to him (making sure that I gave his wife a wide berth) and he was happy enough to talk.
He said his name was “Jose” and his wife’s name was “Dana”. Soon after I started talking to him Jose showed me a picture of the child he had lost. In the picture, he was holding Dana and she was holding Jose Robert, born stillborn on January 31 of this year. “He was going to be ‘junior’,” Jose explained, “named after me and then Robert is Dana’s father.” It wasn’t the only loss they’d suffered this year. Jose’s mother, Jose Robert’s grandmother, had flown in from Puerto Rico to see her grandchild born. She succumbed to breast cancer three weeks before Dana gave birth. “It’s been a tough year,” Jose said, matter of factly.
Jose said he had been in the Army National Guard from 2007 to 2010. He was an 11B Infantryman, serving with the 63rd out of Arecibo in Puerto Rico. Before that, he had been a chef in New Jersey. He had had a house and a car and things were going well, according to him. When he left to serve, the owner of the restaurant had guaranteed him a job upon his return, but in his absence things spiraled downward for business and when he returned, he didn’t have a job to return to. He said it only got worse from there. I didn’t press him for details. I didn’t really have to. 2007 to 2010 just happened to coincide with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. After the restaurant failed he had three jobs at one point but it still wasn’t enough.
They’d been homeless for five months, he said. At first, they were homeless in New Jersey and then someone told them that it was better to be homeless in New York City because of all the services they would be able to receive, so they came. When they arrived, they slept on the F train for 4 nights. They ran into the bureaucracy of the shelter system prevented them getting a placement. Lawyers from the Urban Justice Center had to fight for Jose and Dana just so they could get a place to stay in converted hotel called the “Aladdin”. He spoke warmly of “Libby”, the lawyer who fought for him.
Doesn’t he get benefits from Veterans Affairs, I asked him. Can’t they help you? He scoffed. He’d been waiting for his benefits for years, he said. He was honorably discharged and he was still waiting. They owed him five years of benefits, he said. Other lawyers were fighting for him to get the benefits he was due to no avail. “We’re out here freezing,” Jose said, “while they’re inside and warm.”
(At this point in the interview I had to pause and stop taking notes. I had taken my gloves off in order to write in my notebook but it was getting too cold for me to continue. Then I realized that this couple had been out in this cold for days, the same cold I couldn’t take for minutes)
There had been a man, Jose told me, who asked him dumb questions about the military, trying to see if Jose was lying about his service. Jose showed that man pictures of him in uniform, of him and his unit. Satisfied, the man left, leaving Jose with nothing. I suppose it is hard to believe that this would be possible, the veterans we so hallow living on the street. A quick check on the internet will reveal that by last count, there are about 50,000 homeless veterans. I had been talking to one of them.
Before I left I asked Jose what he would want the people who will read this and the people who are passing him and his wife by to know about him and Dana.
“We’re not like the other people out here,” he began, “We’re not feeding habits.” In Jose’s experience, most of the homeless people he’d encountered we’re on drugs. “In the five months I’ve been out here, I’ve had to take four homeless people to the hospital because of drug problems. If I were rich, won the lottery or something, all these people out here, I would buy their homelessness. I would give them money tell them they can’t be out here. 70% of them are lying. Stranded? For two years? Come on! If they’re on drugs, that’s all right, just don’t lie about it. Get help.”
“People curse at us and spit on us,” he continued. “We even got robbed! Someone took our cup and ran away. We’re just trying to survive. I wish people would be more understanding.” He said that he was looking for work, trying to get jobs. He pointed at the McDonald’s across the street and said, “I’ve even applied over there. Any job would be good right now.”
Before I left I told him that we were trying to set up a computer education program at St. Paul’s for homeless people. I gave him the date, the address and the time and a way to reach us. I turned around and walked away. I didn’t want him to see me tearing up.
