Hunting the Homeless on Long Island

A couple of months ago, I participated in the daunting task of counting the un-sheltered homeless here on Long Island. Every year a coalition of service-providers work together to track people who do not have housing: folks who are living "on the streets," in the woods, under bridges & over-passes, abandoned buildings, or any other location where someone could stay without being accosted. What makes this task especially difficult is that the homeless on Long Island are seemingly invisible.

Long Island is an automobile driven suburb that has a lacking public transportation system. In neighboring New York City, most of the residents depend on the subway and buses to get around -- and the homeless are clearly visible as they seek shelter in the bus terminals and subway stations. However the general population on Long Island doesn't see Long Island’s homeless from the driver's seats of their SUVs. Most of those who do not have a home live in abandoned buildings, their cars, in the woods, etc., out of view of those of us who have homes – leaving an impression that there aren’t any homeless in the suburbs. However, nothing could be farther from the truth – the problem is real (see the NY Times and Newsday).

And it seems that it’s only getting worse with the downturn in the economy. The sad news is that people are dying. Every winter it seems more homeless Long Islanders die as a direct result of their homelessness (Homeless Man in Box Crushed, Homeless Man Dies Outside in Riverhead, Homeless Man Found Dead, after Being on TV).

So every year, we try to count the homeless and make a report to HUD (US Housing and Urban Development) so that the homeless are not forgotten, and funding to assist them is renewed. It’s easy to count the folks who are in shelters and seek services. It is more difficult to count those ‘on the streets.’ They simply don’t want to be counted. They are afraid they will be deported (many are undocumented immigrants), or that they will be ‘evicted’ from whatever box, make-shift campsite or dilapidated building in which they are squatting, or their mental illness will not allow them to seek assistance. So we spend lots of time interviewing people, searching, and hunting if you will, but not much time actually counting. We see plenty of evidence of them (see pictures).

This past January, I investigated a location in Merrick (on the south shore of mid-Nassau County, LI, NY) and found another make-shift campsite, but could not find it’s residents. Less than a month later, a man would die on that site.

I guess my point is while local and national candidates talk about making housing affordable – usually they are not talking about affordable for those who are impoverished. Poverty is barely an issue addressed in politics. But it needs to be. Our sisters and brothers are dying not just somewhere else, but in OUR neighborhoods, in our backyards.