Midterm Assignment_4_66_67_W22
Case Study: This is like a true story - a housing journey. Read the following story and answer the questions below.
This is the story of “X” a community college student who is homeless. They came to me one day after class and asked if there was an older version of the course reader they could buy at a discount. I have a free copy in my office I can lend you, I offered. X and I walked back to the office and I could tell X was tired. I made a joke about partying too much but X rolled their eyes and I could see there was something else going on. In the office we talked about the course and X shared that they were having trouble finding an apartment they could afford. I referred them to the resource center and made sure they had my contact information if they found the office unhelpful. X left the office and I remained cautiously optimistic something could be done and X could focus on classes.
Later that night I saw X on the subway but did not want to interrupt their sleep. We got off at the same stop in Midtown Manhattan but I was behind X by 50 or more feet. As I got up the stairs and crossed the street to attend a talk about human rights at the Roosevelt House I saw X curl up in a courtyard garden with a blanket they pulled out of their bag. Later, as I walked by the same courtyard I saw X asleep in the cold, alone.
The next few classes I was anxious and unsure of what to say. I noticed X getting more and more tired but they worked hard to turn in the assignmnets and keep up with class. Then, about a week later, X did not show up to class. I did not see X for the rest of the semester. About that time I started doing more research about student homelessness. I had lost my apartment and was very lucky to sleep on the basement floor of a construction crew I had met in exchange for working with them just after I graduated law school. I wondered how many people were struggling with finding an affordable place to stay in the city.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homelessness among the general population is becoming more common. Nearly 50% of college students struggle with housing during college and 12% of community college students across the country have been homeless within the past year. In California the legislature passed a bill to allow students to sleep in their cars in the college parking lot overnight. It is hard to imagine something like this happening at Kingsborough but if the problem keeps getting worse it may need to come to that.
I learned that LGBTQ youth make up to 40 percent of the city’s young homeless population, according to the Ali Forney Center and many transgender New Yorkers face housing discrimination when applying for apartments. X told me that they had been kicked out of their family home when they were a teenager after their dad died and their new stepdad was physcially abusive and had an alcohol problem. Their dad was a working-class carpenter and did not leave any money for the family when he died unexpectedly young. X said they thought they might have relatives in California but they had not seen them in over ten years and did not know how to get in touch with them. X’s mom was depressed and said X had to deal with their own problems. X said they spent a couple of years couch surfing. They got a job right after high school as a waiter at a bar near the theater district in Manhattan. That is where I saw X again one afternoon after a conference I was attending nearby.
X didn’t recognize me at first but when I pulled out my papers and notebook they came over and said hi. They said the bartenders and waiters were having a discussion about the Black Lives Matter co-founder, Alicia Garza, and wondered what I thought about black and queer liberation uniting under one movement. I shared what I knew about social movements and listened to a group of people 20 years younger than I talk about what they hoped the future might become. X and Betty brought up college and both had taken time off because they were struggling to find some place to live. Betty moved in with her boyfriend and X stayed there sometimes or at the shelter. They both shared they found it impossible to focus on school when they were spending some much time trying to find a safe place to live.
I asked about the libraries but Betty said that they would get in trouble a lot for nothing. Mostly, they explained, it was older adults who didn’t like how they looked or their lifestyle. One time, X said, an older white woman saw a heavy metal band sticker on her book bag and commented she didn’t know black people were into that kind of music. She was then told that part of the library was closing soon. Betty said this kind of stuff happens to her all the time too. She said people don’t like it when I speak spanish in the coffee shop or library and tell me to be quiet or ask where I am from. After awhile it just gets too frustrating not having a room to go get reading or other assignments done.
I asked about their experience working at the bar. “It is what it is,” they both shrugged, “we fit what the bosses are looking for - physcially.” The job didn’t pay well but they couldn’t even get interviews at most of the places they applied to. One of the bartenders from Betty’s neighborhood got them the jobs here. Betty said it was hard if you didn’t know many people who could help with jobs. That’s why they wanted to go to community college - to network and find out about better jobs.
After X got off work we went to a diner nearby for dinner and X told me more. I asked about the resource center and X said that they were great. X got food assistance and applied for section 8 housing. X got the voucher but after 8 months of searching they could not find a landlord who would accept it. It is illegal to deny a voucher but X, and others, said that landlords come up with other excuses to deny housing. X said that was not the only legal issue that often comes up. They said that Betty used to work in a hotel nearby cleaning rooms with her mom. One night the manager sexually assaulted her mom and threatened to have her deported. Even though her mom has a green card another member of the family is undocumented. A week later Betty was sexually assaulted by the manager and quit. X said they know a lot of stories like this. Most of the victims don’t feel like they can trust anyone especially the police.
The intersections of policing and housing have become a tragic irony in the age of COVID. One report estimates there are 700 hotes in NYC; 139 of these house homeless people; 63 took in homeless during the pandemic. The City negotiated a contract with the Hotel Association to pay 78 million dollars whereby FEMA pays 75 percent of these costs. The official oversseing the process, Steven Banks of Social Services, argued, “The consensus of the city before COVID was commercial hotels were not an appropriate way to shelter people. We are using this only as a temporary bridge to get back where public health can be appropriately protected in a congregate setting.” People experiencing homelessness are seen as temporary problems in the otherwise contstant drive to increase profitability in the city.
X intends to re-enroll in college once they find housing. Betty wants X to move in with them but that would violate the terms of the lease, according to Betty’s boyfriend. They are worried they might lose that apartment after barely affording the 3 months deposit the landlord demanded by combining their resources. Betty is back in community college in the Bronx and is majoring in compartive literature. X is a criminal justice major. X brought up some of the topics we learned in introduction to criminal justice about labelling theory.
While it would be unconsitutional to criminalize being unhomeless according to the Supreme Court in Robinson v. California, many cities enforce so-called “quality of life” crimes based in broken windows theory and public disturbance regulations. X explained how they have been unfairly targetted using these vague rules. “Sometimes people in the bar bring in cocaine and other drug - mostly the rich yuppy types from Connecticut and New Jersey who work in finance or tech - but one of my managers basically looks the other way or participates himself. Betty, who is a recovering alcoholic and has been sober for five years, had to break up a fight between two of these guys after closing one night. I was coming back to the bar because she texted me about what was going down. Three of four of our fellow employees were pretty coked out when I arrived and probably on other stuff too. I was standing outside when the police came and they frisked me for weapons and drugs they said. One officer made a comment about how I looked and asked about prostitution. He said there were a lot of my types around here and the others laughed. When Betty came out they asked her where the guys went and Betty took them around the corner and pointed to where they went.” X told me other stories where they were discriminated against for suspicion of public disturbance which they think is code for wrong place, wrong time, wrong person.
Article 5 of the Convention on Human Rights, a document the U.S. was heavily involved in drafting and pressuring other countries to follow around the world, states “everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.” The 5th Amendment was drafted to protect againt “infamy” - involving moral turpitude or unpoular social behavior that was not actually a criminal act. I shared information about a social movement group, young invincibles, that was trying to make social change for homeless students and other related issues. Members of the group had worked with us at Kingsborough I was hopeful X might engage with them. We talked about their desire to go back to school, rights, policing, housing, and other issues they could study when they got back. We ended the conversation talking about the law in California allowing students to sleep in their cars in the parking lot.
“Too bad I don’t have a car…or a license,” X joked.