Location Matters to Clinton Hill Homeless Community
By Alison Vicrobeck
On a recent sunny Thursday afternoon, Tony was sitting alone on a park bench, surrounded by the white plastic bags that hold his belongings. He was playing chess with a hand made set, carved out of scraps of wood, and it was hard to distinguish the pieces. They weren’t the traditional black and white, but rather different shades of blue on one side and a mix of green, brown and orange pieces on the other.
The park was full of children playing, laughing and screaming, but Tony seemed lost in his game, completely unbothered by their excitement. Of course he could have picked any park to practice his chess skills, but everything about this scene suggested that this one was his home.
“I’ve been living here most of my life,” he said, referring to the neighborhood of Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. The fact that Tony, despite not having a house, chose to live in Clinton Hill was no fluke. It was a neighborhood he knew and loved.
Homeless people, just as much as the general population, have preferences for certain neighborhoods and their decision to stay in a specific area can be influenced by a number of factors, from safety, to the presence of services, to a sense of home. But that doesn’t mean homeless people necessarily want to stay in the most peaceful residential neighborhoods.
In the space of a year, reports of homelessness have nearly tripled in Clinton Hill compared to last year, from 10 calls to 3–1–1 in the first 8 months of 2014 to 29 calls over the same period this year. Meanwhile, neighboring Fort Greene has seen a corresponding decrease. However, when walking in the streets, homeless people are harder to spot in Clinton Hill than in Fort Greene.
An area where residents frequently call 3–1–1 to report homelessness tends to be hostile to the homeless, causing many of them to move to different neighborhoods, according to Megan Huftings the Coalition for the Homeless.
“They’ll move away from areas where they’ve had a negative experience,” she said in a recent telephone interview. She later added, “there is nothing that really separates people who are housed form people who are homeless besides that particular housing situation. I think that any of us are going to look for a home where we feel comfortable where the things that we need are accessible.”
Homeless people don’t only steer clear from some neighborhoods; they may also be attracted to specific areas in the city. “The main determinant is where services are,” said Geoffrey de Verteuil, a senior lecturer of social geography at Cardiff University’s School of Planning and Geography. “Where services cluster, you tend to have a cluster of homeless.”
Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, substance abuse centers are among the services that attract the homeless. Studies have also shown that homeless people tend to live in areas with a lower average household income, where they fit in with the race of the majority and where they can find liquor stores. These neighborhoods often have high rates of motor vehicle thefts, drug use and homicides.
Clinton Hill doesn’t fit the typical profile of neighborhoods that attract the homeless. The average median income in Clinton Hill is well above the citywide average, there aren’t any homeless shelters, and there isn’t a particularly high number of liquor stores. Yet some homeless people like Tony have decided to settle there.
According one long-time resident, “there are a lot of problems in Clinton Hill, but homelessness isn’t one of them.” Some locals were even surprised to hear that there had been an increase in homelessness reports in the past year, mainly because homeless people are hard to identify.
Paying attention to details like how worn their shoes are, whether they have clean clothes or if, like Tony, they use mismatched wooden blocks to play chess with, might help identify an homeless person, but even these are not sure giveaways. For the most part, the rare homeless people of Clinton Hill blend in with the other residents.
Homeless people don’t always want to live in the same areas as other homeless people and they might not want to stand out, experts say. They may have personal reasons for wanting to move into a neighborhood where few services that are offered and homeless people are rare. Some, like Tony, might prefer to settle in a calmer residential area, like Clinton Hill.
“It’s peaceful, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful and everybody is minding their own business,” said Tony, before diving back into his solo chess game.
