Real Stories: Meet Willy
Published April 14, 2009 @ 04:21PM PT
Last week I met Willy near Times Square in Manhattan. The previous night he had tried to get into a shelter but was turned away. With homelessness on the rise, many city shelters are past capacity. Sadly, this means folks like Willy are left on the streets.
Willy is in rough shape; he has arthritis in his leg and arm. He says he drinks because he's discouraged and has no place to go. In his own words, a typical day is “very depressing.”
Willy said that if he had housing he would no longer be inclined to drink or do drugs. I know from experience that he's right; living on the streets is horrible already, but it's almost impossible to find sobriety. Research has found that the Housing First approach is both cost-effective and successful in helping homeless addicts recover more quickly.
I don't know what will happen to Willy if he stays on the streets, but I pray he gets his wish and finds a home soon.
(Special thanks to the New York Dream Center for their hospitality.)
Willy from invisible people on Vimeo.
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Comments (1)
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Author
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Sixteen years ago, Mark Horvath was homeless on the streets of Hollywood. Today, he works in marketing/communications and is an activist for the homeless. He vlogs at invisiblepeople.tv and blogs at hardlynormal.com.
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I have been homeless, too, back when i was younger, and let me say that it is a much harder life than living off the streets. You have to find a place to sleep every night, you have to figure out where your next meal is going to come from... it's hard to have any possessions because people will kill you for them, or they are hard to carry around. There's definitely no real safe place to keep anything, and god forbid if you have a family heirloom of any kind that may or may not have any monetary value, cause it's going to be gone too. Not to mention that some of the homeless are on disability or social security or food stamps and/or financial aid.. but can't afford a place to live because of medicine costs or something along those lines.
After a year or two, you become accustomed to live that way, and you forget that there's another world out there, not to mention everyone you run into that isn't homeless treats you like you're garbage. I lucked out and got out of the situation, but it took me over 6 months to adjust to living a more "normal" life, after only 3 years. The government doesn't help you find housing, the hud lists are years of waiting, and it only makes the situations worse... especially now that the economy is in dire straights. If i hadn't got into low-income housing 6 years ago, i would be on the streets again, and i am on a ton of meds that i would have to be constantly guarding, because some of them are medications that have a "high" effect on other people, while they barely relieve the pain i live in on a day to day basis.
Posted by Julie Rodgers on 04/18/2009 @ 01:49AM PT
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