Poverty & Homelessness Experience New York City Metro Area
By Beth Wendy Grundfest-Frigeri
September 6, 2018- all rights reserved
My husband and I are both disabled. We have different medical problems and his are more numerous, are less stable and he has not been granted "disability status" in terms of social security- last conclusion being that even though no jobs exist that he can do for the part time only he us capable of that since in theory said job title exists he is "ineligible" although truly having heard those job titles I do not believe even "part time" he could do them. My medical problems are more straightforward than that and mostly lifelong so I have been getting disability, but am currently waiting on a medical "renewal". I have ElhersDanlos Syndrome Joint Hypermobilty, a few bad discs in my neck, an unfused vertebra in my lumbar spine, Spodylitis in between, early onset osteoarthritis, two types of vertigo and lung, skin, stomach sensitivities. I know there is more spinal damage now, but am still getting through to try and get new scans done for that. My husband's biggest problems are how easily and frequently he gets motion sickness, chronic colitis, heat exhaustion and renal problems, which keep him largely homebound.
In the fall of 2011 when I asked my then bus buddy for "more than friends" I knew I was really offering marriage and I knew that route and our future would not be "easy" but I definitely did not foresee what happened. A few months into knowingly dating, he went into the hospital for acute renal failure. His sister with whom he was living was threatening to kick him out to "afford the mortgage" and yet he was paying her about half his earnings every month to cover household expenses. I found that the house was in fact willed to them jointly, which began two lawyers and 6 years of battling in court to get at least some of the value of said property he was not safe to stay in. I was in a subsidized apartment then, where spouses were allowed to live together. The program management agency I was with though refused to grant this, rather insisted that even though the household income did not rise that I either leave or pay them more than double what I really owed them. Thusly I left said program and managed to stay in said multiple species bug, mice & mold infested apartment with inadequate insulation to keep in the heat during winter and no air conditioning in the summer for another two years. The first year the bedbugs and mice weren’t significant and thusly my husband was able to sizably recover from acute renal failure, no dialysis nor transplant needed, but he broke higs right shoulder via tripping & falling on a loose section of blacktop near the transit center and an inguinal hernia showed during our first Passover together. In cutting ties with the subsidy program I also began cutting ties with my abusive relatives and in doing so got rid of doctor given coping pills and about 75 lbs of body weight that my doctors swore earlier would help my back pain.
The semester before the eviction was a mess, barely sleeping as every night around 3am I would wake to feel and kill as many of the bedbugs drinking me as I could, before struggling to get a few more hours of sleep before going to school and errands on public transit. Images/films of poverty triggering me then as even with them being from so called "developing countries" they mimicked mine except many were cleaner, so I dropped a "world sustainability class" for those horrors I was enduring. 35°F in our bedroom some nights, as we dealt with the bugs and mice.
We got our stuff into a storage unit before the official eviction and then as I was working on my degree stayed on my nearby college campus until the end of that semester. My school was in Mahwah, NJ, Bergen County but as I lived in Spring Valley, NY and no shelter existed in Rockland, with Bergen county NJ shelter correctly saying "not NJ residents" we weren’t allowed there, so instead needed to go the Adult Family Shelter System in New York City- about 30 miles south. The 3 month stay on campus cost us about $3,000 the Department of Social Services in Rockland, NY should have paid it but never did, after claiming we were $9 over in "income" to recieve the $400+/month that otherwise would have allowed us to afford rent, they claimed this by wrongfully counting Social Security ($350 +) in said equation.
I had visited the five boroughs a few times before on my own via public transit for the origami convention but after being born in one of said boroughs my now 59 year old husband hadn’t even done that much. So neither of us in any way knew our way around in advance. There was not a listed "closing time" for the place that I thought was the actual shelter but turned out to just be the entry processing center, so I spent about $15 on a cab to get us there before 5 pm.
AFIC
We brought five outfits, our identity paperwork, letter from school where we’d stayed, a few towels,4 days changes of summer clothes, a can opener, a small book or two each, a travel pillow, a heating pad, our tablet computers, canes, cell phones& chargers as mainstays. My husband also brought some of his magic supplies, as I did origami things- all told if we physically could have each towed a big rolling suitcase- I had one- then it all could have fit in them, but it was 1 big& 1 small suitcase with a few smaller bags.
The Adult Family Intake Center or AFIC (A-fick) as it is called is located in the same building as a mens shelter and a parole report in center. Security that’s gone through thusly for people entering the shelter is similar to former inmates. Banned objects that are listed on the website only include "weapons" but in person all glass including things as small as my jar of turmeric, metal blades including nail clippers and hand turn can openers, blow dryers, metal nail files. The security process includes you & your bags/coats/sweaters going through metal detectors and having security and cops search through all your bags. They also have a ban in said building on "outside food/drink" instead they give you 1/2 rotten& half frozen food& drinks and sell you decent stuff in vending machines. Most people smuggle in food anyway and indeed by the end of the stays of most, how to smuggle in "banned items" is something that is learned out of necessity. For those of us with mobility aids going through security means removing all our equipment with metal components, for those with implants, it is at least one bought of clothing removal and a wand over the "claimed area of the implant", especially if you do not bring a doctor’s note& even then most will get said treatment. Walker and wheelchair users get asked to go through the metal detectors minus said equipment the vast majority of the time, cane users it is 100%. You will get them at the other side pretty quickly but you’ll still get prodded to "move it quickly" and as little space as their is, no seating nearby, this was a major problem for me as a joint brace and cane user. If you do not have mobility aids it is completely and wrongfully presumed you are an abled and thusly that your slow movement is "laziness, argumentative or aggressive" depending upon the guard. At the shelters themselves there are more humane guards but not really at the intake center. Security takes between 30 minutes and 2 hours to get through.
We had among other confiscated items lost, a hand turn can opener, aparently this was considered by them "possible for us to turn into a weapon", considering how it generally took two of us working together to use one to just open a can with it and another resident managed to smuggle in a bebe gun within 24 hours of that, I believe their confiscation and search system to be highly flawed. Within two weeks we bought and smuggled in a new can opener.
After entry into the AFIC building it is normal for each round of processing to require you stay in said building for at least 23 hours, sitting in metal chairs with arm rests during most of this, lights on always, no place to charge your electronics, not allowed to pick up your feet from the ground to rest them on neighboring empty chairs.
The offices themselves are closed from 5pm to 10am but you must stay there during that or you’ll loose your spot and need to repeat the ordeal until you endure at least one, generally 2-5 such times. My husband and I endured 4 of them, our time range was 23-27 hours. Each time you are given a notice the night before you are ordered to report to said place, it is given about 10pm and you must arrive through the security before 9am or you will need to repeat everything again, it does not matter that appointment slips generally list 11am or later nor that it takes at least two hours to use buses and trains to even get within a mile of the center, if you arrive through security after 9am, you need to start applying all over again. After& if three "applications" are done and with a after every "1st appeal" a 2nd appeal being a "new application", you are banned from trying to apply for three months/90 days. You are required to show paperwork, be it mail or letter/note with a phone number for verification to "varify where you spent the prior year from date of attempted entry into the shelter system" to determine why you could not remain there nor return there, which is why parolees have it easier in getting accepted into the shelter system. "Couch surfers" as in people who keep switching which friends, relatives, or businesses they sleep with/in have it harder if even possible to be accepted. If you’ve recently had your residence destroyed or been evicted- as in within 24 hours, that makes it easier, but still not "guaranteed" they ask about any and all blood relatives and friends you have, if any of them are possible places, you will be asked to stay with whomever you list. It does not matter if beds even exist in said dwellings which are not legally listed as "not allowed your entry", so if you have restraining orders from your blood relatives, you holding one’s against them & letters from said relatives and their buildings saying "if you move in, you and your blood relative will be evicted" & minimum dwelling size of about 100 square foot/person are the only things I have seen which will work in getting whichever blood relatives you write not to be demanded you "go and live with instead" as a "refusal for access". We watched in horror as a Puerto Rican couple faced that fact, he had recently had a quintuple bypass surgery and as soon as he was no longer bed ridden they were both kicked out from living with their brother & sister-in-Law, not allowed to return by said family but as no restraining order existed, they were refused access those three times. A couple in their 50’s both living in NYC more than 40 years, married more than 20 years, working since teenagers, denied shelter. They stayed on the streets for about two months before another city agency found them, put them in separate rooms of their shelter for about 9 months before being given a subsidized apartment.
The documents needed for AFIC are state issued ID cards, proof of US citizenship, proof of legal familial relationships, varifiable by phone call proof of where you both were for 1 year prior to attempting to enter the shelter system and proof of income status. As the wait to get to the "interview" to submit all of this is at least 8-10 hours and then another 10-12 hours is about the wait for your "provisional shelter assignment", it’s best to bring paper books to read and save your phone with GPS for said "assignment". It is either that or bring directions for all the possible locations. They give you train/bus numbers/letters but before and/or after said bus/train or combination thereof may well be a 1/2 to 1.2 mile each way walk and walking directions to/from said stations/stops will not be included with said train/bus information. Once one worker said to us it was "just south of the station" as if it was close by, when in reality it was more than 1 mile away from said station and even the subway station paper map we got for free showed more accuracy than said directive. It was never under 80°F during these schleps to and from the intake center, often upwards of 95°F, beyond the provisional shelter which was claimed "only disabled accessible location" being 1.2 miles from the nearest train station stop, the intake center was another .8 mile from the nearest train station stop, making it a 2 mile walk in 92-98°F of humid heat on under 2 hours sleep, carrying about 100lbs of bags with very frequently no water/juice, at best 1/2 liter available during said 28 -32 hour ordeals.
Provisional Shelter

The provisional shelter was another jail like setup. Metal detectors, full bag searches upon every entry, an entry door set too heavy for me to open on the outside, a narrow unmarked short stair set in front, two elevators that worked at best 50% of the time, rooms where you needed to ask staff to open them upon every entry (unless your family member was still inside). Whenever we both left in one of our 3 units (rooms) we came back to have the room thick with marijuana smell/smoke- which I'm allergic to, so I got severe asthma attacks every single time from it, 2nd unit just had cigarette smoke, so the asthma attacks were milder there, 3rd was okay. We were always given our onw room/unit with a bathroom which we did not need to share with another family in the shelter system, this was the one "accommodation" for our many medical problems we were given. When we entered we were asked in writing about "religious&/or medical dietary restrictions" as indeed by law and in their rule books, they are required to grant both such modifications, in reality the religious one was partially granted at the provisional shelter level and not laughed off as "a ridiculously picky request set" at the longterm shelter. This is why I lost another 70+ lbs in the shelter system, getting so thin that I was starting to get sores on my ankles, elbows, knees and tailbone/hips which I kept treating with ointment and coconut oil to avoid infection spreading and setting in. My husband just kept landing in ERs as he mostly ate what was offered in spite of his system not being able to handle it and over dehydration caused by those treks to & from AFIC together with public transit inacessibility issues and harassing cops. Most of the fellow residents at worst just ignored us, even as many were friendly with a few among hundreds hostile, more staffers caused us harm than anyone else in the way procedures were enforced and not. Among other harassments were threats to throw out our purchased food because it was "too much at once" it was all in cans and plastic bags but they wanted us to instead travel on multiple trips with it, which two people with mobility problems cannot do.
Medical--
My husband had medicaid that was functional after our first 3 months in the shelter system but after 6 months in said system I was switched from medicaid to medicare only and my medicaid card deactivated, as few a doctor's and as limited as regular medicare is, it is a mainstay of why I have not sought care since then for my chronic medical conditions. The other being my rather abysmal history with Dr's and secondarily my continued focus on my husband's more urgent needs for treatment.
ERs and regular Dr's are more difficult to navigate while in the shelter system as in part an extension of poverty: when either asks you to "improve or fix your diet and/or rest more" you need to either refuse or ask that whatever diet changes they ask for, they give you the food/drink in nonglass containers so you can actually achieve said changes and "resting" is mostly just an impossible task until after you get past the "provisional" phase at which point it becomes possible at least sometimes. Doctors notes in theory/legality require the shelter change your food but in reality you need to sue the shelter system in order to get those or religious dietary accommodations pushed through. One of the three ERs we went to did indeed help the diet component by giving us enough for a few days worth of food for Eddy to get the required accommodations so that his colitis attack could at least be quelled without his kidneys worsening.
There is a "grievance" procedure which I did go through for the dietary issues and was told that my husband and I should " just start eating and stop complaining" after I got handed paperwork with which to ask for said accommodations in writing as my first request was met with "you did not provide the request with the proper paperwork" so only their papers on their letterhead with a Dr's signature was "acceptable" as even counting as a "real request". Two ER Dr's notes and one regular M.D. were not considered "sufficient proof" of needed accommodation without that page of theirs to even qualify as a "real request".
Questionaires included medical issues upon entry, disabilities, allergies, religious affiliation, race, age, birth place, immigration status, height and weight. After 9 months in the shelter system we were both given the same shorter version of a "medical report" form- it only asked for name, age, height,weight and everything else was pregnancy status and menstruation cycle data, we were given a few verbal "warnings" upon refusal to fill them out for my husband.....apparently their "procedures" required that all men & women give dates of their last periods as part of proof they were not pregnant.
Form of address
In the shelter system they address you either as "Miss ___" or "Mr___" with the blank being your first name (no matter how many times you ask them to do otherwise) or far more frequently by your room number. I understand in some places or situations the "miss ___" or "Mr__" thing is considered "respectful but after about 3 years with a set of mamers and murderers doing so towards me and my husband, I am beyond finding this "odd" and onto finding it a triggering construct. My religious name is "Malka" my legal first name "Beth"and legal middle name "Wendy", any of those alone are fine forms of address for me on a regular basis, just as "Misses Grundfest Frigeri" is. Calling me a "miss sasquatch" is also more respectful in my world and frame at this point than "Miss Beth" is after what I have endured. The main people that used said term for me were first the staffers who would knock once before opening our door when my husband& or I were undressed in said room.
Living/facility conditions
Temperatures in the long-term unit of a shelter were often 90-95°F when it was 30-50°F outside, so we would then turn on the window mounted air conditioner units all rooms had. Once that I saw and overheard the fire department came over an overheated boiler too. Beyond that the first sink we had in the bathroom of our unit was coming apart in our water, so after a few times of my reporting that and a few months of my hauling jugs of water to said space it was replaced. There were two elevators and as most of the disabled folks were housed on the top floor the fact that almost always at least one was "shut down for repairs" and sometimes both were, was another very real problem and easily provible problem.
Harder to deliniate is the religious discrimination, that was shown brightest when a Christian group came in with healthy and good quality food but demanded we first "stand for a prayer in Christ's name" one of the lead "housing specialists" coled said prayer. I was first to arrive and it had been advertised as "organic produce and other healthy treats" then after waiting an hour, I left from that mess. My system was so debilitated I could not process potassium from potatoes but needed bananas for helping my muscle cramps and had sores on more than half my joints from the weight loss, but I left so quickly I nearly broke the door. Then after tears I was nudged into going back to try and get something. My husband ate a little of it I believe but that mess sickened me inside so most of what I was nudged into taking to try and eat instead grew mold in the room before being thrown out.
The SNAP (food stamp) allotment when we were in the shelter was $35/month due to the food in the shelter, after we left it was $250/month.
Transition and the apartment
We were given an initial move out date of February and then later when we finally got saw a copy of the lease, June, we saw evidence it had been altered in terms of someone else having likely signed it. About a year into our living there we learned their had indeed been people living there in between said dates. In March as the shelter director kept giving us delays and lies, I asked for help online and a paralegal did indeed help me with some phone calls to said shelter. This was likely my biggest benefit from at least temporarily supporting Sanders as I knew her through a Bernie group on Facebook, as thin as I was when we left and as sick as my husband was, we would not have survived much longer in said shelter system. That 250 square foot apartment was indeed a mess but it was still better than the prison that the homeless shelter was.
En route to move all our stuff from the storage unit to the apartment, I did indeed almost land in a real jail, because the person at the storage facility did not understand that I had indeed intended to pay her for the moving truck using the balance from the overage the social services system had paid them. I told her that I "had credit" but apparently that was not a "clear enough explanation" and after I returned the truck she demanded cash/ debit card payment for the rental which I did not have. The overage was about $300 and the truck rental was not even $200 so even as she was shrieking and yelling on my being a "theif" to her, I was completely confused, exhausted and a trifle annoyed.
I had under two days in which to move all of our belongings into the apartment from the storage unit and as that included a 2+ hour each way drive with my needing to figure out "safe routes for trucks" this was far from an easy task in the driving and navigation elements alone. We did have 3 others helping one day for a few hours but with one of them also being disabled, it was basically up to my husband and I to do 70% of the manual labor in under 14 hours, with the apartment being on the second floor of a multifamily house turned apartment building.
We did finally get into that 250 square foot apartment. The apartment was found via a lead from the job coach at the shelter who twice helped by giving us some kosher food, over the course of our 9 months there. None of the minor fixes promised had been made and instead about 3 months later we were told an asbestos abatement was planned and necessary for the inside of the apartment. We also were told the kitchen sink worked and instead first had the housing subsidy folks demand we "let back in the handyman who had failed to correctly install the sink twice" then after that a few dozen more texts and calls yielded a better handyman who finally did at least that. Overall that apartment was not quite the prison of a death trap the homeless shelter was but it was far from "safe long term" as was shown in part by how much sicker my husband got there and how often the asthma attacks of mine from neighbor’s smoking inside occurred.
