Hopeful Residents Doing The Best They Can for Their City
Stroll down North Hampton Street, Poughkeepsie, past or through Mansion Square Park trash floats on the fall breeze. Trucks roar, clunking over the cracked and pockmarked streets, cars slow down, careful of people sitting along the road, to make the right into Thrifty Beverage.
“Some of these poor people out here, they sleep under the porches,” said Jules M., 60, who has been with the City of Poughkeepsie Sanitation Department for the past 36 years.
“They’ll ask for money, kick a trash can over, but that’s really it.” Said Jules M. about the local homeless population. Jules and his sanitation partner, Jay S., tackle the route from Main Street to all the local parks every single day. They note that some people don’t want help; they will loiter in the streets, ask for money, drink, and act disrespectfully towards the police.
But among the mess of everyday life when it is easy to see everything in the bin as trash, these two workers recognize the value in reusing items. Sanitation workers do their daily rounds, picking up extra garbage on the road leading to Mansion Square Park. Not everything is trash, and when the occasional blanket ends up in a bin, they put it aside for anyone in need.
“We normally look out for them in any way we can,” said Jay S., 29. “If [a reusable item] is there, we’ll put it aside for them.”
In the summer, Main Street, Poughkeepsie is filled with the hustle and bustle of people going about their business, music blaring from portable speakers, and rowdy crews gathering around trash cans, socializing. The crisp transition from fall to winter has led people to retreat indoors for warmth, however not everyone has that luxury.
The jobless, the homeless, the youth, those with too much time on their hands spending too much time in the streets– those are the ones causing trouble, some would say, but others consider them the most in need.
“The pods are right down the street and I have a lot of people who walk by and get Lunch from the Lunchbox,” said Carly Hughs, operator of Dutchess Outreach’s Mobile Market. She greets those she recognizes from the Lunchbox with enthusiasm, wishing them well as they pass by. The Mobile Market is parked outside the Family Service Center every other day, which caters to locals trying to feed their families on a budget. The Mobile Market often receives donations of people ‘paying it forward’ to those who are lacking in funds.
Even law enforcement has shifted towards implementing more community resource initiatives in an attempt to divert people from incarceration. Marist graduate, Sergeant Aken of the City of Poughkeepsie Police, has lived in the area his whole life and has 16 years of experience at the department.
“Pushing people to alternative programs as opposed to incarceration, the community wants it. We don’t want to arrest people, let’s be real.” said Sg. Aken.
Some of the resources the City police department provides are transport to the Stabilization Center for mental health calls and community surveying, where specialists within the department go out once a week in a van to seek out those who seem in need, provide a meal, conversation, and direct them to services that would assist their situation.
“The court can order some sort of treatment from time to time, but I don’t think that they are as much geared towards pushing the resources, at that point they are in the criminal justice system” said Sergeant Aken.
The City of Poughkeepsie Judicial Department declined to speak with reporters regarding crime and resources in the area.
