New York

John

46 years old

“I see a lot of crazy people on the street, talking to themselves, but I find myself doing it as well. It just happens out here. Being out here, by yourself, people looking down on you.”

John is a former construction worker. He also served in Kosovo, wanted to return for a 2^nd draft, but decided to stay and start a family with his wife instead.

John was married, and they had a daughter. 7 years ago, there was a terrible car accident, and both his daughter and wife died.

“I was supposed to drive.”

Anna

62 years old

“Prior to being homeless I was homeless,”

Anna has been homeless for 20 years now, since the late 90s.

“I’ve always had poor vision, but since he used to hit my face and eyes a lot, with time it got worse and eventually I became completely blind.” Anna has been completely blind for 26 years. Anna feels her poor eyesight led to her slipping behind in school, not being able to read and write properly. “That set me back a lot, A lot, a lot a lot. I didn’t know what kind of help I needed, or what to do about it.”

Aqirah and Rhonda

(35 & 58 years old)

Aqirah:

Aqirah has been homeless off and on for about 3 years; due to a turbulent marriage to an abusive husband. “Each state has a different shelter system. In New York they have the resources, it’s just people don’t want to do their job.”

Rhonda :

“If you come to New York, they have to put you somewhere.” Rhonda has been homeless since her grandmother died in 2009 in North Carolina.

Mayra

58 years old

“I have never worked in my life, I still have never worked. That’s all I knew how to do. I saw the girls doing tricks outside my window, so I thought, I could do that.”

Mayra is the mother of 5, and now the grandmother of 10. She arrived to the States, from Cuba, at the age of 9, with her family. They used to run a bakery. Mayra has 5 brothers.

Mayra has been homeless for 11 years. She spent 9 years on the street, and the last 2 in a shelter. Having lived across the street from the prison, where the local street workers used to work, she thought. “I could do that.” Having left school after 8^th grade, not feeling she had any other qualifications to make money, she turned to prostitution. She was in her early 40s at the time.

Harold

64 years old

“I was committing suicide slowly, I was just too coward to take my own life. Well, actually I tried to but I was unsuccessful, it hurt me and I lived through it. I heard God say to me “Don’t do that, so I didn’t.”

Harold was homeless for about 20 years. He has been a cocaine addict for 25 years. “My homelessness started when my mother died”

Brian

54 years old

“When you’re on the street the only thing you can think about is your safety and trying to get something to eat. You can’t think about family, or anything positive, cause you have no stability out there, absolutely none.”

Brian is a former heroin addict. His addiction started in the 90s, and ended a year ago. He was found on the street by the charity “Bronx Works” and within a week he had a roof over his head.

Walter

42 years ago

“I think we can grow with Trump in office”

“Here in New York there are always places you can go, to get help, in the mental area, so you never have to stay homeless unless you want to.”

Walter is a creative person, he paints and writes and is currently working on a graphic novel named “The death wish”. It’s about a battle between the Anglo-Saxon and the African Americans. He chose this topic since he identifies more with Anglo-Saxon than African American

He also has great faith in the current administration. “Trump is the Trump of “The apprentice” – making sure people are competent, innovative – Obama just gave jobs to fill the quotas – but to people that were incompetent”

Joanne

53 years old

“You should always be grateful for what you have, cause you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

Joanne suffered a stroke 3 years ago. As she was back to 90% of her former self, 1 year after the stroke, she got hit by a car, and broke her leg in 3 places.

She spent 2 months in the hospital, when she was released she had no place to go, having lost everything she became homeless.

Joanne is in a shelter, where she sleeps on a chair. She has been at this shelter for about a year now.

Zeqir

47 years old

“ Don’t give people money or liquor. Never. Just food, and maybe a blanket or clothes, nothing else.”

“I’ve worked all my life. I owned 2 restaurants. I could do anything, be the bartender, the chef and so on. You have to know everything when you’re the owner, cause if the guy doesn’t show up, you have to do his job.”

Zeqir was on vacation and left the restaurants in the wrong person’s hands. The person in charge, had relations with a 16 year old girl; unaware she was 16, since she had a fake ID. Soon enough her family found out and nearly beat him to death and the restaurant went bankrupt due to its’ bad reputation. “It was a small town.” Zeqir went from an income of 12 000 dollars /weekly to 4500, which of course didn’t cover the costs. He sold, and closed.

Peter

52 years old

“ I just love the flavor. It tastes like candy. But, don’t use it. I don’t want that on my shoulders. You’ll just want more and more. ”

Peter has been homeless for 8 years now. He became homeless after his niece kicked him out of his own apartment. He had taken her in, since she had no place to go. She took his money : about 15 000 dollars that he had received after a court settlement, his monthly check and locked him out.

Peter was adopted as a baby. He met his real mother once or twice but she showed little to no interest in him “Peter, I’ll be back and the she took of again, and then she disappeared on me.”

Thomas

62 years old

“More and more people are pushed out on the street. If you’re single, you’re at the bottom of the list.”

Thomas’ homelessness began after his accident; he was hit by a van, on his bicycle. Business being slow prior to the accident, it completely stopped then and he was unable to pay rent.

“It’s getting harder. We went through 20 years, where no one cared about the homeless In New York. So, now buildings are falling down, and there isn’t enough housing. Getting housing, is like winning the lottery. And then they can just reject you, and you have to appeal and so on. ”

Adrian