Homeless, but not hopeless

Published in The Post-Star (A1)
3/06/06

It’s hard to get philosophical about life’s deeper issues when you can’t stop shivering.
Peter Fish knows from experience.

In his almost 40 years of living, he has been homeless more than once. He knows what it’s like to wear the same clothes for so long that you’re tempted to steal laundry from clotheslines. He knows that sleeping on the streets can get you beaten up. He knows that even chicken from a
trash can tastes wonderful when you haven’t had a real meal in three weeks.

Things have never been easy for Fish. He spent his childhood in foster care and boys homes after leaving an abusive home. He suffers from epileptic seizures and describes himself as "slow." He has had problems with the law because he can’t control his anger at times, although lately he’s been trying to leave everything in God’s hands.

When he married Nina, a sweet-faced older woman he met at a soup kitchen, it became easier to afford rent with their combined disability checks. They now share a small one-bedroom apartment on Warren Street and said they consider it a palace.

Peter’s story is complicated, but he’s very clear about one thing.

"It’s never good to be homeless," he said repeatedly. "Until you experience it for yourself, you don’t know what it’s like. I don’t want to think about ever being homeless again."

Cliff Green is hoping that homelessness will be nothing more than an unwelcome memory for many more people soon.

He helps lead a coalition that recently received a federal grant to help local homeless people pay for apartments — and become stable enough to keep them.

Green coordinates a local dual-recovery program for people coping with mental health and substance abuse issues, and is the co-chairman of the Warren/Washington/Hamilton Housing Coalition.

"If the first thing you’re trying to do with a person is to get them to address mental health and substance abuse problems, and they don’t know where they’re going to stay for the next night — they know you’re not really listening to what they need," said Green. "You have to meet their basic needs first if you want to establish a relationship with them."

The Housing Coalition, formed in 2004, is an alliance of more than 20 social services and community agencies that aims to develop affordable housing options for the local homeless population.

"Over the years, the agencies who provide mental health and substance abuse services have seen an increase in the number of clients who are homeless," said Lisa Coutu, the coalition’s co-chair. "We realized we needed to address that very basic problem to be able to provide services to these people."

On a single day in January 2005, the coalition counted 198 homeless individuals in Warren and Washington counties, including 24 children. While some of those people had found temporary shelters or cheap motel rooms, about one-quarter were sleeping outside or in abandoned buildings.

"I was shocked that the number was so high," said Green. "It really drew our attention to what the need was."

This year, the Housing Coalition received a $436,320, five-year federal grant to provide 14 subsidized apartments for homeless people disabled by severe mental illness, HIV/AIDS or substance abuse. The apartments will be managed by the Glens Falls Housing Authority and are located throughout Warren County and in Hudson Falls.

In exchange for a voucher that pays up to 70 percent of their rent, recipients are expected to spend "in-kind funds" to get the treatment and support they need. In other words, if the grant pays $300 of their rent each month, they must spend at least $300 a month at a participating service provider, such as Warren Washington Association for Mental Health. Medicaid will cover these costs in most cases.

The grant could benefit people like Gary Perkins and his wife, Cindy, who are facing the prospect of being homeless again. They have spent the past three weeks in a $100-a-week room at the dilapidated Hotel Madden on South Street, eating at the soup kitchen next door and waiting for their next disability checks.

Gary used to be a dairy farmer in Vermont, but his life hit a downward spiral in the past decade. A car accident nearly killed him in the early ’90s, leaving him with back pain and a broken rib that won’t heal. He lost the farm, started drinking and ended up drifting from place to place. He married Cindy, a former truck driver with multiple sclerosis, about three years ago.

They came to New York last summer hoping things would be better here, but things got worse. Gary blames it on the Social Services administration, which he said puts too many restrictions on their disability checks.

They’re already a week behind on rent at the Madden and don’t know where to turn for help.

Gary has stopped attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and is angry and frustrated with his life — so angry that he punched a cement wall and broke his knuckles a week ago.

"I just don’t know what to do anymore. I mean, look at this. I’ve been low, but never this low," he said. He gestured around their small room, which contained a single bed, a sagging couch, a television and some empty beer and food cans.

"We would love to have an apartment, hopefully on the first floor. We’ve tried to get one, but everybody wants a big security deposit, and we’re just barely getting by right now," he said. "We’ve never had anything of our own."

For people like Fish, even a small apartment feels like a huge blessing.

"After being homeless, you look at your apartment totally different. We appreciate what we got, what God’s given to us," he said.

The couple’s funds are sparse after paying the rent each month, and they worry about the future. They eat most of their meals at The Open Door soup kitchen on South Street — that is, they did until a week ago, when Peter’s anger flared out of control again, and he threatened an elderly woman and a volunteer. Director Bruce Hersey banned him from the premises for at least two months.

"We told him that his wife is welcome to come and bring him home meals, or we can deliver them to his house, but he can’t come here. This has to be a safe place," Hersey explained.

Hersey said he thinks Fish would be an excellent candidate for the type of housing and treatment combination the new grant will provide.

"In this society, he’s failing and is prone to become homeless again," he said. "Peter has such a good heart, but he needs a stabilizing environment."

Hersey said he sees a need for more "transitional housing" in the Glens Falls area and is excited to see so many agencies working together to serve the homeless population through the Housing Coalition.

"Transitional housing means giving people help getting on their feet. It means getting them into a program for treatment and counseling, where there’s structure and accountability," he explained. "Then you want to tie them into some sort of positive supportive system so you can wean them off the program."

That’s what Fish believes, too.

"I see a lot of people getting evicted from apartments because they don’t know how to take care of them, or because they’re drinkin’ and druggin’," he said. "Instead of just giving them money, why can’t we use the system to help them, so they will stay in the apartments?"
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