Stacy White: "I was homeless, but I wasn’t hopeless." #CSocD58
The statement below is Ms. Stacy White's contribution to the Commission of Social Development side event on homelessness, "Finding Our Way Home - A call for integrated solutions built on the lived experience of homelessness and poverty," held on February 14, 2020.
Good afternoon,
I was homeless but I wasn’t hopeless, I knew a better day was coming.
My name is Stacy White, and today I will talk about my journey from being evicted, to living in the shelter and then finally finding my apartment, in other words, finding my way home.
Before I became homeless I had a voucher from DSS (Department of Social Services) called CityFheps; I was living with my daughter and two granddaughters. City FHEPS is a voucher for housing that you are eligible for only if you have children living with you who are under 18 years old. After my daughter and her two young children moved my youngest daughter and I were no longer able to have the voucher.
It was no longer an options for us.
After losing the voucher they sent me to HomeBASE [a homeless prevention program of the City of NY]. While going back and forth to court Homebase assigned me to a caseworker who worked sufficiently with me but was sending me to the wrong city agencies. As time was catching up, I could no longer find an apartment. Thus, they evicted me.
After my eviction, I stayed with my family which at the time seemed like the right thing to do, but proved not to be. It all gathered up on me. While there I obtained a SEPS (Special Exit and Prevention Supplement Program) voucher also from DSS. I was constantly calling to find an apartment for when my daughter came home from college so she wouldn’t have to be there, but I was unsuccessful.
So after leaving my family, I went into the shelter. From the moment I got there, I knew that this experience was going to be hell. You walk in, get the rules and regulations and then there are curfews and bag checks imposed on you. There are also room checks. It feels as though your privacy is on hold for whatever amount of time that you’re in the system. Everything you do, you have to answer to someone. While I understand and respect that rules must be enforced for our safety, it often felt extremely degrading.
The food conditions were horrible. Even if there were multiple complaints about the food they refused to do anything about it. On more than one occasion, residents would be served frozen food. You would put your fork in and the food would be frozen. Some people would eat and I understand that’s all they had. Some people could go and get outside food but some people couldn’t. The staff would treat you as though you were lesser than them. I have heard staff say, “That’s why you’re in the shelter now,” or, “you’ll always be in the shelter.” Whatever the argument was, I don’t think that professional individuals should have reacted that way.
Although there were people with mental health and drug issues, I feel as a professional there are things you should and should not say. Their words made people feel sub-human. I believe New York City shelters’ DHS employees need to have a little more sensitivity training.
Being in the shelter is like two steps up from jail. They take your freedom away from you. They tell you what to eat. You have to see someone ( a case manager) and discuss what you're going to do when you have to get out of the shelter, a similar process that is done when you’re locked up.
Now that I shared how life was in the shelter, I will talk about how I got out of it.
I went into the shelter in August 2018 and I had no housing assistance at all to help me find my own place. Appointments yes - what’s your name, how many bedrooms do you want, where do you want to live at. Every week you have to do an ILP, which is an independent living plan that the case workers give you to help the family gain self sufficiency and move to housing other than temporary housing. Working with the case workers was not easy. Many times they would give me appointments but the case workers would not show up. Then, I would be the one in trouble because my ILP was incomplete for that week. And that is not fair to a lot of people if you don’t speak up for yourself, as I did for myself.
Other times, they would advise us programs that were not fit for us, like the SOTA program (Special One Time Assistance program which provides one year's full rent up front for eligible clients). My daughter only makes $900 a month, so a SOTA program was not fit for us. Many people in the shelter take it to only wind up back to the shelter because they can’t sustain it. To me it is a process of elimination.
I decided to work on my own looking for an apartment because there was no actual assistance in helping me look for an apartment, only general information was given.
We went to one apartment but the landlord didn’t accept us. After that, we tried contacting many landlords but it got to a point where the landlords either would not be taking my voucher or would ask every bit of information from me and my daughter. This was especially exhausting because after giving all our information, we would not receive any calls.
So my next step was to try management buildings. Despite the discouragement of my case worker and others, I was determined to still do it. Nearly every day I would check Housing Connect to see if they had any new buildings available and if their apartments were under $1320. If there were, I would pull the application and fill it out with all the necessary information. And though it proved to be frustrating at times, I knew the outcome would be worth it.
You know when you have a feeling and it feels right you pray on it and that what I did. I prayed and prayed and prayed. My daughter and I were called for a housing appointment. We went to that appointment and finally we had the possibility to sign a lease. I WAS SO excited when we finally got the key.
To finish, I would like to share some recommendations. The most important one, based on my experience, is: “Check on us!!! Ask the homeless people!!” Have supervisors come in, have someone from outside the shelter come in and speak to the clients and ask them, Are your basic needs such as housing being addressed by your case manager/ housing assistant?”
I know that shelters are not meant to a place of luxury because its temporary situation; nobody mind’s that. What they probably mind is the way they are spoke to and treated by security and staff. I can guarantee that if you took a survey and asked people in the shelters what is it about the shelters, they will probably say staff, security, and probably maintenance. Those would be the three top issues.
To conclude: the one thing I never lost was my determination. To me, this situation was temporary without a doubt. And I knew that I would be out of it soon. Although there, will be more bad than good things. You just have get up and do what you have to do. Don’t allow yourself to be pushed into a home that you know is unfit to live in. Stand your ground and be firm about what you want. Even if it takes a while, you still have a voice.
It only takes one voice at the right pitch to make an avalanche.