I found Charlie on Fifth Avenue, not thirty feet away from Carlos whom I had interviewed exactly a week ago. He didn’t have a cup in front of him so I asked him if he needed help. He said, no. Did he need money? Again, no. I asked him if I could sit next to him and ask him questions. At 75 he was hard of hearing but he was happy enough to have a conversation with me.
He gets $412 from Social Security, he explained. That, and whatever he collected on the street, was all the income he had per month. In other words, the amount of money he had to spend in one month would be barely enough to cover my cell, cable and gym bills. “I worked for a restaurant, off the books,” he said. “It was the biggest mistake of my life.” That’s why his Social Security check was so small. If he had worked legitimately for as little as five years, he explained, he would have had $200 more.
He became homeless nine years ago after he had had a heart attack and he slipped and feel at the restaurant, shattering his right arm. “It’s all metal,” he said. Medicaid paid for the surgery but recently he lost coverage. “I can’t get pills for my heart right now.” He added wistfully, “Maybe I can get temporary help somewhere…But by the grace of God, I’ll be okay.”
He’d been sleeping at the Bellevue Men’s Shelter all these nine years. According to him, it’s the largest shelter in America. I asked him if it was safe and he said, “yes” but I think he misheard the question because he added, “there’s a lot of rats and bed bugs there.” He continued, “If it were warm, I would sleep out here forever.”
I asked him what he would want from God and he said, “To take me away and let me get to heaven.”
He placed his earthly hopes in Section 8 housing, a program created by the Federal government in 1978 to help low income people. “The Federal government looks out for you,” Charles said. He was on the waitlist for a studio apartment. At 75, Charles had no family to speak of. “They’re all gone,” he said. I didn’t ask him to explain.
When I asked him what he would want people to know about him he said, “I’m homeless. I’m sorry about it. If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t work off the books.”
Before I left I told him I’d see him around, that I’m always on this street. Again, he didn’t ask me for money. All he said was, “Will you say ‘hello’ from time to time?” I promised him I would. And then I left.