I started working around Times Square a few months ago and have walked past this guy daily. One day I had a half sandwich I didn't want so I give it to him. I now get a friendly smile and hello every time I walk by him.
While I was hoping this article would have more information on his background, I am glad to now have a name that I can say hello to when I walk by.
So let me get this straight. They're visiting this guy, daily, trying to get him to do something he obviously doesn't want, while there are probably LOTS of homeless people in other districts dying (sometimes literally) for a safe, warm place to live.
Those aren't humanitarians, those are enforcers for the bourgeoisie who don't want to have to look at poor black people every day.
I work as a sysadmin at one of the orgs that does the outreach (Common Ground). So we follow the supportive housing model as opposed to housing people in shelters since the shelter system often prolongs the homelessness. Common Ground's goal is to end homelessness by permanently housing the homeless in a clean, healthy and supportive environment. So in addition to housing, Common Ground partners with others to provide health, job, psychological and rehab services. The supportive housing model has been very successful.
One of our strategies is outreach, the kind described in this article. The reason we do aggressive outreach is because many of the homeless have been burnt by their past shelter experience so they are resistant to any offers of housing. Obviously, we cant force them to accept housing. But we go to the homeless, day in and day out, and offer them help and its done in the most benign way.
We do target other areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn. There are teams dedicated to each neighborhood and one by one, we hope to house the homeless.
My stepmother is working on a Housing First initiative in North Carolina, in addition to her other work with homelessness. I know that programs like yours in NYC and those in San Fransisco have been an enormous help, both as models as well as tools for convincing people that these programs work.
Myself and many others like me are thankful for the work you are doing. Keep it up!
That is a bold accusation to make given that you have never met any of the workers. Reality is never as simple as you assert. It's almost certain that the people who visit him daily have far more compassion than you would have us believe, and certainly care far more about this man in particular than you do.
I'm sure you're right - I was making my point rather hyperbolically.
But I think the point is valid: a lot of work to help "the homeless" is ultimately motivated more by removing eyesores and eliminating guilt-trips than actually helping people. Out of sight, out of mind.
And yes, I know it's human nature, but that doesn't make it right.
I disagree - I volunteer with the homeless here in Seattle and I have not gotten that impression from anyone I've worked with here.
The city government, city council, and general people are more interested in removing eye-sores and guilt trips. But by and large the aid workers are genuine - heck, they are the only people who seem to perceive the homeless as people.
So the question is, who are these aid workers working for - if they represent the city directly, then yeah, I'd be inclined to call shenanigans. If they represent an apolitical aid organization though, I'd be hesitant to make that accusation.
Part of the complexity of the situation is that a lot of the homeless have severe mental illnesses, and many are dangers to themselves because of it. This is why I don't immediately jump to the "enforcer" conclusion - it may very well be that the social workers are trying to get him to a place where his mental illness may be treated.
Personally I'm against efforts by cities to simply get the homeless out of sight - I think most people in society sorely need a daily reminder of just how lucky they are, and how much they are not doing to lift up those around them. Let the ugliness and ills of the city shine openly, it's the only way we will ever be compelled to fix them.
You're right, and I've known a lot of volunteers who were, to a person, in it for the right reasons.
I guess it was just the tone of the article, how they were focusing so much on Times Square, with nary a mention of homelessness in other parts of the city. One contented homeless guy isn't a bad thing - good job. Check on him every few weeks, and move on to people who really do need help. And who might not be in such a prominent location.
The Christian missionaries I know and the anthropologists and the Maxist labor organizers and the social workers have much more in common with each-other than any of them has in common with with the average middle class office worker, bishop, auto mechanic, startup founder hacker, etc. (That is, for the most part they devote their lives first to helping people, and then secondarily to broader goals.)
Not only is the majority of missionary work well intentioned, but missionaries have a complex first-hand understanding of social problems small-scale and large-, and can do an incredible amount of good. (I say this as a steadfast athiest.)
Christian missionary work has in the past, and sometimes continues to have, an ugly side. But unless you have some direct experience with what spending a lifetime trying to help people at an individual level is like, your blanket condemnation is neither useful nor appropriate.
Did you read the part where I literally said "christian missionaries are well intentioned"? I guess you just read the part I didn't actually write about missionaries being unable to do good work...ANYWAY:
Anthropologists and the other two are very different...anthropologists mostly don't raise social movements. In fact even having their actual presence known in the field is mostly considered a downside as it affects the way people act (longer discussion not for here). Anthropologists are studiers, primarily interested with understanding and interpreting the world for others to act on. I don't think they belong in this discussion.
Marxists and Christians absolutely have a TON in common. I will agree on that. I don't blanket condemn anyone who isn't pushing their views along side with the help they give. I do have very direct experience with a wide variety of Christians (from Catholics to Greek Orthodox to fundamentalist Presbyterians) and many of them did some sort of mission work. The vast majority of it had little to do with religion, but without fail they all prayed with the people they were helping and helped work towards some greater mainstay of Christian faith in the area (usually working on building some Church, repairing some Church). Unfortunately I think missionary work is inextricably about the broader goals, and it's not as clear cut as you make it out to say you are helping someone - this is a slippery slope to cultural imperialism.
I obviously don't have any issue with feeding people, and helping them rebuild after disaster (widespread like war, or personal like homelessness), but take a nation like Korea. Before Americans came in it was almost entirely Buddhist. After the Korean War the Americans came in and said "hey we'll help rebuild your nation, just let us build this Church." In many cases the first generation (those who made these deals) paid little mind to the Churches, but the second generation was completely culturally slaughtered. South Korea now has a thriving economy and is between 35 and 40% fundamentalist Christian. It is now culturally necessary to be Christian in many cases to be in the upper class (the wealthy social networks are mostly Christian). So look what the trade off there was in terms of culture for stability.
Is it not possible to understand that such a thing could happen on a personal scale as well? There is no moral ambiguity about feeding someone who is starving, there absolutely is when you package that food with your beliefs. You force them to compromise themselves, and I think that's neither useful nor appropriate.
First, I think I misread your original comment. You’re right that missionaries proselytize, by definition. I guess what I objected to was “would you like jesus in your life? no? what about now?” which is not how any of the missionaries I know interact with people.
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In response to this second comment:
In the places I have any experience with full of desperately poor people, the outsiders who decide to settle down, whatever their official institutional ideology, mostly care about helping people, at an individual level.
> this is a slippery slope to cultural imperialism.
I’m somewhat skeptical about this. In the places with the most severe cultural imperialism – for instance, Latin America – said imperialism was done in the name of god and the king, but was at root much more about material advantage and personal self-interest (read: theft) than salvation, the latter being mostly a convenient rationalization.
Today, pretty much everywhere in the world has been under the “cultural imperialist” influence of the west, linked by a globalized economic system.
Moreover, I think you oversimplify in suggesting that Christianization is just a mechanism for hegemony. I don’t know much about Korean culture or religious diversity, but from your description it sounds to me like Korean elites seized on Christianity and bent it to their own ends, quite independently of the missionaries who had brought it there. At the same time, Korea was industrializing and urbanizing full speed, building an export-led factory economy. We could speculate about what the power structure would be like in Korea if the population had remained entirely Buddhist, but it’s not as if feudalism would have survived, and I don’t think the outcome can be blamed on Christian missionaries without likewise indicting centuries of Western technological advances, foreign bankers, American consumers, and the rest of the prevailing world economic system. (And Koreans of all stripes, too.) In short, it’s complicated.
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For what it’s worth, I also find packaging aid to desperately poor people with religious ideology to be distasteful/awkward and agree that it is potentially abusive.
Christianity IS a mechanism for hegemony among many other things (just like technology is a mechanism for hegemony and other things etc.). I think we generally agree: people will be people and good and bad will be done with or without religion, which was really just an example (so Korea was an example of an example? ok time to end it :P).
"For what it’s worth, I also find packaging aid to desperately poor people with religious ideology to be distasteful/awkward and agree that it is potentially abusive."
What's your jab at "christian missionaries" got to do with the article? The group Common Ground that is mentioned in the article have no religious affiliations mentioned on their website (after a quick scan).
Vis-a-vis your OT remarks:
Man A (to Suicidal man on a ledge): Would you like to come down now?
A: Don't jump!! Come down! We want to help you!
B: No thanks I actually live up here, and wasn't planning on jumping...
A: ....Don't jump!! Come down! We want to help you!
At one point does it become clear the guy isn't actually going to jump? 10 years? 15? 50?
my jab at christian missionaries was a metaphor that i guess just makes sense to me, but basically was trying to illustrate that often those who look like they need help dont, and often to the response to "no thanks i dont need help" is (especially from missionaries) "oh, you just dont get what im offering, here let me explain."
OK, so I didn't pick the perfect metaphor. For a Christian, unless you choose to have faith in Jesus and accept His sacrifice they you're going to hell. Unlike your account of someone who just likes acting suicidal on ledges hell is not to be mistaken, it is not bognor regis.
Because statistically, the homeless are most likely to be African America.
Source: www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30442.pdf
("By race, the homeless population was estimated to be, on average, 49% African-American, 35% white, 13% Hispanic, 2% Native American and 1% Asian.")
You've refuted a strawman, but you haven't given an actual justification for the original wording.
Using the phrase "poor people" instead of "poor black people" is equally effective -- more, actually, because "poor black people" makes you wonder why the hell it matters that they're black -- and has the virtue of not perpetuating (many) people's unconscious associations of "black" with "poor".
I agree with your point, and although I'm not the original writer of that post, I'm guessing he was trying to give a more nuanced response aware of the racial tensions that exist in socio-economic contexts.
Because when one is making reckless unfounded accusations about motivation and character, there's no reason not to go for the gold.
I mean, I bet these guys only help homeless people because, while they're out on the streets doing that, it's a convenient opportunity for kicking puppies . . .
They are in fact the parasites of the bourgeoisie, getting sweet salaries from a bankrupt, overtaxed city while pretending to be performing a good deed.
Maybe it's the naive and hopeless romantic in me, but when I read the part about "devising a strategy to prevent people from encouraging his homelessness," I couldn't help but feel a gentle pang of indignation. I almost feel like it's too bad that they can't accept this man for the "iconic" symbol that he seems to be, according to locals.
“I just have this dream that all of a sudden something will snap, and he’ll say, I’d love to have housing,” said Amie Pospisil, an associate director at Common Ground Community, a nonprofit that conducts street outreach. “I don’t rule out that it could happen.”
REEEKS of judgment. Maybe he's fine on his own? I think it's fair to bet that he's been homeless longer than the outreach people have been outreach people, maybe he knows something they dont (like he's doing what he wants to?).
I'm all for helping those who want it, but there is a thin line between assistance and judgment as so many others are pointing out...
I know what you're saying, but its important not to discount the mental illness usually associated with chronic homelessness.
Housing certainly should not be forced upon him, but when someone is hurting themselves sometimes you have to push them to stop. Its never so black and white.
Is he considered mentally ill because he's homeless or is he homeless because he's mentally ill? There's a distinction between the two, and how my reading of the article comes across is that they're suggesting he's mentally ill because he doesn't want housing.
I'd assert that the people doing cross-nation marathons spending night after night sleeping in a tent on a roadside are far more mentally ill than a man choosing not to have a home.
He doesn't need to be treated for being homeless, if he has a condition he needs to be treated for its cause not its effect.
Where I grew up there was a chronic homeless man. Throughout the summer months he saved enough money to ride out the winter in a cheap apartment. He busked with a guitar and harmonica and was homeless by choice. He frequently refused people's donation if they threw in anything too big, especially to the kids and teenagers.
As he once said to me, he chose to be homeless and live off generosity rather than be homed and live off charity.
Who says they don't accept him for the iconic symbol he seems to be? That doesn't mean they don't also want to get him off the streets, for both practical and compassionate reasons.
It does seem a bit harsh on him. I mean sure offer him a way out now and then - but 'prevent(ing) people from encouraging his homelessness' seems an awful lot like saying "don't give him food" - we have signs like that where I live - except they're aimed at pigeons, not people.
On the whole efforts to move homeless people to various sorts of housing seem like a good idea, but don't the ones in this article come across as a bit unnecessary? I mean, visiting him every day, memorizing his walking habits, etc.? He clearly seems not to be posing a threat to anyone, and if he's the only homeless person in the entire area, it's hard to say that homelessness is causing the area a major problem or inconvenience. Why not just leave him alone, or at least inquire less often than daily as to whether he'd like to move in somewhere?
Why can't they just leave the man alone, if it's what he wants? The man's practically an institution now--he's adapted to the lifestyle and Times Square has adapted to him. Where's the harm?
That's exactly what I was thinking. The other homeless were helped at east in part because it was the right thing to do, but with Heavy it seems like they just want to jump that last hurdle. From the quotes in the article it seems like they've taken him wanting to stay as a direct challenge, it's not really about helping him any more.
I find it interesting that in a recession, during a time of heightened homelessness why are they focusing on one man in Time Square. Is it perchance because Time Square is one of the biggest tourist destinations in New York? It's all I could think reading this. It's like a desperate attempt to create a fallacy that will ensure tourists will happily spend their dollars in stores, it doesn't appear to be a genuine humanitarian effort because harassing someone daily certainly isn't humanitarian - heck if I lived or worked around Time Square I'd probably offer to file a claim for injunctive relief on Heavy's behalf to keep the 'humanitarians' off his back.
If they really wanted to do that, they'd have done it by now - the cops have the power to move them on or bring them in (though not in all jurisdictions). From second hand experience (talking to these guys) there are areas of LA where the homeless are constantly chased away from and not allowed to settle.
It's clear they're looking for any legal basis to do so - to the point of threatening to have someone follow him around all day, every day, "talking" to people in the area to figure out his needs, and trying to discourage people from giving him food.
Is it illegal for authorities to "move him on" in NYC? It happens a lot across the rest of the country (though whether it's entirely legal or not is another matter). I suspect NYC has more liberal laws in this regard.
I agree. I think that helping and housing people that want the help is great, even if they have to be talked into it a little. But if Heavy really is happy where he is and wants to stay then what right do they have to force him to do otherwise, which is effectively what they are doing when they say that they want to prevent his neighbors from 'supporting his homelessness'...
Now let's pretend that he decides to live in front of your house. That's ok, right? What's the harm?
Providing for homeless people is definitely society's responsibility. I don't think we really want to make people "institutions" and call them iconic because they've camped out somewhere for a long time.
If 100 people decide to camp out in Time Square because there's a lot of tourist quarters to gather, is this ok? Should we grant seniority if there are ever too many? I'm sure you've heard the stories about "homeless" people in NYC who make a good living begging for small change and have nice apartments.
The article doesn't say they actually ask him to leave every day. Just that they visit every day. It sounds like the people visiting him are also responsible for various other aspects of Times Square, and tracking the only homeless guy there does not seem like a particularly onerous task. Checking up on him frequently to be sure he isn't dead or dying doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me.
"Housing first" has been pretty successful so far. It just makes sense on so many levels, including economic. Just Google it for more info. The fact that there is only one homeless man left in Times Square is kind of amazing. Of course there are other factors (keep in mind homeless numbers in NYC are up overall) such as a policy to move the homeless away from touristy areas such as Times Square.
On a side note, my girlfriend is opening a residential shelter for women on Monday! Three levels of housing (short, medium, and long term) and almost five years in the making. It's called Florence House (part of Preble Street) in Portland, Maine.
Wasn't going to post as I struggle to justify the relevance of the parent and my response to the community, but think it's ultimately of little consequence and the words themselves are important to me, so...
~OT: I once worked as a charity fundraiser and had more than a few encounters with homelessness, one of which (a few years after leaving the job) left me quite stunned. The company was a bit of a stop-gap for those that could and would handle it, with accommodation, food, and a pretty interesting lifestyle all thrown in.
I once found myself in a pub, however, and a homeless guy came up and asked me for a bit of spare change. Having built up a healthy respect for people and torn down my impulse to judge on the basis of only a very small amount of information (from my exp. in said job), I gave the guy what I could when, looking in his eyes, I saw my friend. A guy I had worked with as a fundraiser, who, after a brief spell of bad luck had fallen through the gaps of society and ended up having to constantly climb. I did what I could for the guy, but more importantly he did so much for me - I had never realised destitution was so close (or that the climb back up was so high).
Another time I met something I can only describe as otherworldly.... it was almost sacred. Take what you will from it. I was approached (this was while fundraising) by a small, fat, black guy in comfortable, though slightly disheveled clothes in his late 50s or thereabouts. As he came close it occured to me that he didn't exist... I honestly cannot understand the instantaneous clarity of that thought... maybe he was just too much of a cliche for my mind to deal with, but there was something more, an aura that came from somewhere deep within him, from somewhere I don't think I have. He took my hand and started talking to me as though it was the most ordinary things in the world, and he proceeded to tell me about his pebble. He'd been fondling it in his other hand and as I noticed it he started telling me about where he'd found it and all the things that could have been while that pebble had remained hidden. And that, he said, was his point. My pebble was currently hidden, and I was close to finding it. It could be a stone, a coin, a woman or even the world! The point was that it was mine and that it had been sitting, passive, until the day I, and I alone, would come across it and bind myself to it...
I don't even know why that's worth sharing with you. Most people I tell, I'm sure, just think I was seduced by the romantic ramblings of a mad old man... maybe so, but I think that moment, myself, the old man and what he said deserve a great deal more dignity, even divinity, than that. I choose to make that moment spiritual (and I'm not by any means "religious")....
Reading about Heavy reminded me of Austin's Leslie Cochrane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Cochran). He stood for mayor. After reading his manifesto I would vote for him. Too bad I don't get a vote.
There's nothing I love more than watching middle and upper-middle class people talk knowingly about the homeless; both sides indignantly insisting that the other just doesn't understand it. No judgement, mind you, it's just one of those issues that brings out the opinions in people least qualified to give them.
While I think it's great what these outreach organizations have accomplished, the tone of this article is a perfect example of how journalists poorly depict homelessness.
It's de-humanizing.
For a second there I did a double take because it resembled an old article from The Onion, which was pointing out how journalists do this so often that nobody notices.
Do a search and replace on the article, replace the homeless man's name "Heavy" with "animal", and the article still makes perfect sense, except instead of being about sociology, it's now zoology, like one of those fluff local news pieces about some wild animal that ended up in the city limits and was causing a nuisance. Except it's a man.
That's a rather important difference though, don't you think? It's one thing to "make sense" after changing a name to 'animal' it's another for it to mean the same thing.
"There's one homeless man left in Times Square" That is news. The article does not stray very far from the point, and covers a decent amount in a limited space. It's an effective article.
It's one thing to "make sense" after changing a name to 'animal' it's another for it to mean the same thing.
I got the same impression as korch. In several ways, it does mean the same thing. They've got a bunch of people "studying his habits and movements", figuring out where he eats and sleeps, and telling the population not to feed him because it's actually bad for him.
People, even other homeless people, are not usually treated this way, but wild animals are. At the root of the similarity, I think, is an assumption that Heavy is not capable of deciding what is in his best interest -- that he can't be reasoned with but that he might be coaxed to do what they want.
> They've got a bunch of people "studying his habits and movements", figuring out where he eats and sleeps, and telling the population not to feed him because it's actually bad for him.
> People, even other homeless people, are not usually treated this way, but wild animals are.
Actually, it sounds to me like scholars doing social science. They gathering facts and analyzing behavior.
> At the root of the similarity, I think, is an assumption that Heavy is not capable of deciding what is in his best interest
Is this an assumption? Or is it a conclusion, based on evidence:
> “I just have this dream that all of a sudden something will snap, and he’ll say, I’d love to have housing,” said Amie Pospisil
> Heavy was far from alone on the streets of Times Square in the 1990s, when he began sleeping there frequently in the midst of a roiling mess of drug dealing, prostitution and crime.
> The social workers at Common Ground said they have no intention of pressuring Heavy to leave the streets.
It sounds like you are saying Heavy is capable of deciding what is in his best interest. If that is the case, then it follows that living on the streets of Times Square is in his best interest, since that is what he decided. Are you really comfortable with this conclusion?
The social workers, on the other hand, seem genuinely concerned for him, but they are hesitant to overstep the bounds of human dignity and 'pressure' him, physically or otherwise, to make more prudent decisions.
I see little justification for a critique of the social workers, here.
Studying habits and movements doesn't seem all that unusual to me. People do it all the time, it's called gossip, and when they get bored they watch TV where there are made-up people you can track.
The other option, to ignore him entirely, not track his movements and pretend he doesn't exist, is also a way we treat animals. Squirrels, pigeons, sparrows, ants, spiders... Yes, there is a striking parallel that's why the Onion parody was hilarious. But despite the grain of truth there isn't anything inherently evil about the tone.
As for telling the population not to feed him for his own good: is that a good thing or a bad thing to do? Ignore for a moment, parallels and parodies, and judge the facts as you know them. (Personally, I don't agree that they should admonish people for feeding him, but it has very little to do with the idea of misplaced paternalism.)
While I was hoping this article would have more information on his background, I am glad to now have a name that I can say hello to when I walk by.