[Marxism] Homeless

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, April 1, 2007
Marking Time, Making Do
By JOHN FREEMAN GILL

WHEN a biting winter storm descended on the Coney 
Island Boardwalk one afternoon last month, 
whipping sand and trash into the air, a flock of 
seagulls lost no time in taking wing. But Patrick 
Garbiras, a gaunt, shambling, 51-year-old 
homeless man, could only do what he has been 
doing ever since filing his claim for Social 
Security disability benefits 440 days earlier: seek shelter in slow motion.

If Mr. Garbiras were capable of scurrying, he 
probably would have done so. But a seizure 
disorder and three operations over the past 14 
months, including an open-heart surgery, have left him feeble.

Since becoming homeless in late 2005, Mr. 
Garbiras has often spent his nights on the 
subway, alternating between the Q and F trains 
because, he says ruefully, ?variety is the spice 
of life.? But as the gray sky thickened with snow 
and the wind-chill temperature plunged into the 
single digits, he could not bear the thought of 
again sleeping on the train, where a man recently 
slashed his forearm with a razor while trying to steal his coat.

Instead, Mr. Garbiras shuffled toward the Sea 
Gate neighborhood. On a ragged block there, he 
said, a friend with a basement apartment 
sometimes lets him sleep on a cot for $10 a night.

?After all this ? living on the streets ? I feel 
like less than a human being,? Mr. Garbiras 
murmured as he leaned into a raw wind that swept 
down Neptune Avenue and cut straight through his purple winter jacket.

But as he struggled, it was not the elements Mr. 
Garbiras cursed. It was the Social Security Administration.

?All my life I worked and paid into Social 
Security, thinking, ?At least I?ll have this to 
fall back on if I get hurt or when I retire,? ? 
he said. But now he feels betrayed. ?I don?t want 
a free ride,? he said, ?just what?s due me.?

John Shallman, a regional spokesman for Social 
Security, said the agency does not comment on 
individual matters. But while in Mr. Garbiras?s 
case, poorly updated agency records and his 
homelessness have complicated the process, the 
biggest obstacle is the 503 days it takes, on 
average, for hearings of disability appeals to be 
conducted in Brooklyn ? 37 days more than the national average.

But whatever the reasons and whatever the medical 
merits of his claim, Mr. Garbiras?s life these 
days is one long wait, a stretch of squalid 
monotony punctuated by scrounging for handouts, 
fishing cigarette butts from the curb, wandering 
the Coney Island streets and weathering the 
occasional health scare, like the blood clot he suffered last September.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/nyregion/thecity/01subw.html

===


What They Didn't Teach Us in Library School

The Public Library as an Asylum for the Homeless
By Chip Ward

Ophelia sits by the fireplace and mumbles softly, 
smiling and gesturing at no one in particular. 
She gazes out the large window through the two 
pairs of glasses she wears, one windshield-sized 
pair over a smaller set perched precariously on 
her small nose. Perhaps four lenses help her see 
the invisible other she is addressing. When her 
"nobody there" conversation disturbs the reader 
seated beside her, Ophelia turns, chuckles at the 
woman's discomfort, and explains, "Don't mind me, 
I'm dead. It's okay. I've been dead for some time 
now." She pauses, then adds reassuringly, "It's 
not so bad. You get used to it." Not at all 
reassured, the woman gathers her belongings and 
moves quickly away. Ophelia shrugs. Verbal 
communication is tricky. She prefers telepathy, 
but that's hard to do since the rest of us, she 
informs me, "don't know the rules."

Margi is not so mellow. The "fucking Jews" have 
been at it again she tells a staff member who 
asks her for the umpteenth time to settle down 
and stop talking that way. "Communist!" she 
hisses and storms off, muttering that she will 
"sue the boss." Margi is at least 70 and her 
behavior shows obvious signs of dementia. The 
staff's efforts to find out her background are 
met with angry diatribes and insults. She 
clutches a book on German grammar and another on 
submarines that she reads upside down to "make things right."

Mick is having a bad day, too. He hasn't 
misbehaved but sits and stares, glassy-eyed. This 
is usually the prelude to a seizure. His seizures 
are easier to deal with than Bob's, for instance, 
because he usually has them while seated and so 
rarely hits his head and bleeds, nor does he ever 
soil his pants. Bob tends to pace restlessly all 
day and is often on the move when, without 
warning, his seizures strike. The last time he 
went down, he cut his head. The staff has learned 
to turn him over quickly after he hits the floor, 
so that his urine does not stain the carpet.

John is trying hard not to be noticed. He has 
been in trouble lately for the scabs and raw, wet 
spots that are spreading across his hands and 
face. Staff members have wondered aloud if he is 
contagious and asked him to get himself 
checked-out, but he refuses treatment. He knows 
he is still being tracked, thanks to the implants 
the nurse slipped under his skin the last time he 
surrendered to the clinic and its prescriptions. 
There are frequencies we don't hear -- but he 
does. Thin whistles and a subtle beeping indicate 
he is being followed, his eye movements tracked 
and recorded. He claims he falls asleep in his 
chair by the stairway because "the little ones" 
poke him in the legs with sharp objects that inject sleep-inducing potions.

full: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=180836

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