StorY

Dear Sir or Madam,


I am writing this letter to explain the problems, stress and abuse, a blind person like myself suffers in a homeless shelter, like the one I have been living for the last one year and a half. I really need the city to know that a homeless shelter like this is not a place for a blind person.

I blind person is a very vulnerable individual and the people in a homeless shelter is not at all a good environment to trust nobody will try to take advantage of his vulnerability. Most of the residents here are ex-convicts on parole, many of the people here have or come from substance abuse problems (the guy in the bed next to mine died some weeks ago). It is easy to see many residents here suffer mental health issues (some guy  tried to commit suicide right in front of me just a couple of weeks ago. None of those is my case. I became homeless when my wife left me argueing she was sick of dragging me around the supermarkets (making reference to the burden my disability represents). After she left me, I lost the little eye-sight I used to have and have not been able to find work since then. In short, I am homeless because I am blind. What I am trying to explain is that I am not homeless, as a result of a sequence of bad decisions, any wrong doing on my part or just because I am lazy. What I mean is that I do not deserve to be punished.

I talk about punishment, because, as anybody knows, life in a homeless shelter is very tough, even more so for a blind person. I can understand that a homeless shelter is purposely not designed to be a comfortable place to live. Else no resident would ever have any motivation to try to leave. But that is again not my case: that should not be a concern towards a blind person like myself. No matter how much motivation I have, if I have not left the shelter is simply because I couldn't. As I explain below, over the last year I have tried hard to get some work, but I have not been able as I am severely handicapped by my disability. Under such circumstances, to make my life more miserable, to make it harder on me (by, for example, keeping me severely sleep-deprived, fed with low-quality food and surrounded by people who - to say the least - is anything but a good influence), is of no help to me. Motivation is not my problem and I do not deserve to be punished.   

I have tried hard to leave the shelter, but I have not been able. I have been long enough in a homeless shelter, that I would qualify for a housing voucher, if I had some income. Unfortunately, I do not have any income and therefore do not qualify for a housing voucher. I am not eligible for SSID nor SSI, and have not been able to find any job. I believe there is the assumption that any US permanent resident who is disabled, would qualify for either SSID or SSI, and therefore automatically qualify for a housing voucher. Unfortunately, that is not correct. I have been a US permanent resident since 2012, but still do not qualify for SSI, because I do not meet the 40 quarters of work requirement. There is the common belief any US permanent resident who has kept his green card for over five years, would not need to have met any 40 quarters of work requirement, in order to qualify for SSI. Unfortunately, that is simply not correct after President Clinton passed a change in the law on August 22, 1996. I have had the Social Security decline my application for SSI, because I have not yet been able to complete the 40 quarters of work. It is very disappointing, because I have lived in the US since 1996. However, I was then under student visas and only received my green card in 2012: when I was able to work, I was not allowed, and when I was finally allowed, I could not work enough quarters before I became blind.

Consequently, my only hope to qualify for a housing voucher is to get some job. Unfortunately, as hard as I have tried, I have not been able. I applied and have been receiving services from the NY Commission for the Blind for over a year. They referred me to a job search specialist and have been assisting me trying to find some job, but it has not worked out so far.   It turns out, these days disabled people do not get any advantage getting any job: they need to compete for a job like anybody else. However, undoubtedly, blind people is handicapped in their chances to find work. Many employers do not trust or simply do not want to take the uncertainty to hire a blind person, if it is not clear to them to what extend that blind person will be able to overcome his handicap and perform like a non-handicapped person. Lack of motivation is not my problem: I have a high-education degree and still was ready to take a manufacturing-chain job. That did not succeed either. I even thought I could offer some really cheap foreign-language lessons to private citizens. That was a good way to get some income, which would qualify me for a housing voucher, since no strong commitment was required from 'my employer'. My clients paid me cash for each lesson and could stop anytime if they were not happy. With that little income, I submitted my application for a housing voucher. Unfortunately, my application was not approved: they did not even bother to offer any explanation or response. All things said, I have been very busy this last year-and-a-half, visiting eye doctors, trying to recover a bit of vision. During these several months I have had three eye surgeries, with all the prior research required to figure out what was the best procedure to follow (mine is a complicated ophthalmological case). Under such circumstances, it was very difficult to find work and keep any work commitment

As a matter of fact, my life in a homeless shelter, effectively made my job search even harder.. In the shelter I am kept sleep-deprived. When a person is kept sleep-deprived, it becomes harder to focus and work efficiently. The environment here is extremely loud at all times and that also makes it harder to focus and work efficiently (e.g. as I am now writing this letter, I am sitting in the dayroom - the only place available for me - and I have the TV screaming into my ears). I have no control over the food I eat: I can only eat the food I am served. Therefore, the food I eat is not in good agreement with my health needs; it is definitely not the most healthy food. I need to eat far more fruit and vegetables, but only get a choice of orange or apple and a very limited assortment of canned vegetables. As a consequence, for the first time in my life, I have become fat and my cholesterol is out of control.

I am not allowed to have wifi on my laptop, so all what I can use to do my job search or any computer work is my little tablet. It is however very difficult to work on my tablet's tiny display and it is impossible to do any typing. I cannot use the shelter's computers, because they do not have any assistive technology installed, as my blindness requires. So, all I could do is to go to some library with assistive technology computers, but for a blind person is quite a struggle to travel up and down. Moreover, in order to get anywhere, I necessarily have to cross the Brockner back and forth. The Brockner is a freaking dangerous and scary highway to cross; even more so for a blind person. Cars run at very high speeds on the Brockner. Generally, I refuse to get out of the shelter, because I fear crossing the Brockner: if I ever make a tiny mistake crossing the Brockner, I will be dead. Moreover, the neighborhood around here is really bad; it is very unsafe and it is particularly unsafe for a blind person. Again, blind people is very vulnerable: I cannot see nor avoid if somebody approaches me, I cannot run away, I would barely be able to defend myself, should I ever get attacked, I cannot run after some thief. I walk around with my blind cane, so everybody knows I am blind. Very often people approach me to help, as they quickly realize my struggles.People grab my hand and guide me to where I want to go. Sometimes they ask for permission, but some other times they just grab my hand and take me across. I have learned I better appreciate all help. However, I fear one day the purpose will not be to help me, but to get something for me. Still I know I better never reject any offer of help: if I reject any genuine offer of help, I may offend the person who was genuinely offering help and at that point, that person feeling insulted may react aggressively against me. Even if everything goes well, it becomes very stressful to be handled everytime I go out, hoping nothing will go wrong and the people who approach me offering help do not have any evil plan to hurt me.

From all, what is harder to understand, what definitely makes no sense is why are we purposely kept sleep-deprived. I understand everybody (not just blind people) is kept sleep-deprived, but it does not make any sense to do so purposely. Lights are not turned off until 11pm, but they are turned back on at 5:30am. That is only 6:30 hours per day and that is way to little. That is strictly unhealthy. My shelter is nothing extraordinary in this aspect. It is a general complaint in all shelters, homeless people are kept sleep-deprived. I do not understand, if it would not be acceptable to feed a person spoiled food or simply undernurished, why is it acceptable to keep our brains without the rest they need. It has well been established, we require a certain number of hours of sleep everyday so that our brains are able to complete certain critical neurophysiological processes. The brain is the most importan and critical of our organs, and you purposely abuse it in homeless shelters. Everybody then gets so upset when they see homeless people falling asleep all over. What is the chance of a homeless person to successfully complete a job interview and get a job, if he falls asleep and starts snoring while he is waiting for the interview. Perhaps you think he purposely fell asleep? 

In my shelter lights are off only 6:30 hours, but those are not even quiet hours. The place is still really loud during lights-off. People is for example allowed to watch their TV's during lights-off. When I complained I could not sleep, because somebody was watching TV near my bed, I was told the guards can ask to turn the volume down, but cannot require to turn the TV off (even during lights-off).

If the place is loud during lights-off, there is no need to explain how it is when the lights are on. For some reason, people develop some excitement and desire to party, play loud music and scream, as the day approaches its final hours. It so becomes impossible to fall asleep before the lights are turned off. I thought to start sleeping with ear plugs, but then one day I woke up and could not hear through my right ear: a wax-plug had formed and I had to go to the ear-doctor to have it removed.

A homeless shelter is not a place for a blind person. A blind person is a person with a clear handicap and therefore needs more and special attention and help. In a homeless shelter there are not enough resources to take care for the special needs of a blind person. it is not that the staff here is not nice, kind and friendly, but they just do not have sufficient resources. I had to hear many times, I should understand I am in a homeless and they just do not have the resources to assist me in all my needs.

 I am not able to read, but still receive a lot of printed mail. It is generally really hard to find some (trustworthy) person to read out my mail. Recently I needed to fill out a 1-page application form and I had to insist and wait for four days, before I could have somebody assist me filling in my answers. At some point, one of the staff members asked one of the residents to help me with that (as he did not have time himself), but, as I hesitated trusting my personal information to that homeless person, he got mad at me and started cursing at me.

I was prescribed to wear a contact lens, to help protect my cornea. However, I needed to periodically take it off and back on, to avoid the risk of an infection. I was however completely unable to find anybody who would help me take the contact lens off and on. So, eventually, I had to stop wearing the contact lens.

Three months ago, the last Friday of March, I was told by my case manager, the shelter's job specialist has been advised of a job opportunity in Spanish interpreting, which very well matched my skills. I was told to see her, first time in the morning, the next time she would be in the office. I did so and asked for her at 9:05 the following Monday. I was however told she had not yet arrived and I should come try again in about half hour. When I asked for her again at 9:30, I was told she was busy attending somebody else. She told me she would call me when she would be done with that meeting. However, two hours later I still had not heard from her, so I went to ask for her again. Now I was told she had stepped out from the office and nobody knew where she was. That afternoon I had a medical appointment, so I had to leave the shelter for a couple of hours. When I returned around 4:30pm, I tried again to see the job specialist. This time I was finally able to meet her. However, she told me the opportunity was the following day. She had wished to see me earlier in the day, because it was almost time for her to leave and she would still need to prepare everything, so that I could go to the interview: she needed to set up a ride to Queens for me, find some clothes, etc. In summary, I missed my opportunity and have not got any like that ever again.

The above does not mean the shelter staff is not nice, kind and friendly. Rather the opposite. The big majority of the staff is very kind, nice and friendly. I would also say so about most of the residents. However, as I said before, homeless people is not the easiest to deal with and, unavoidably, every now and then, conflicts arise. As blind people is particularly vulnerable, these conflicts become  rather unpleasant and difficult more often.. A blind person is an easy target for somebody who is used to bully, harass or abuse the people around him. It is difficult for me to defend myself, because my blindness does not allow me to see or identify my offender. For my offender is always easy to get away with whatever he has done to me, because, he will always be able to melt in the crowd and I will not be able to identify him.

I have been bullied, harassed and abused many times. I have had my private parts touched many times; possibly by the same person. I have been asked to assist masturbating by a couple of different people. I have been ask to provide some urine sample to help pass somebody else's drug test. I have had my underwear stolen and got 'in exchange' somebody else's soiled underwear.

I have had money, a phone or a few other items stolen. It is easy to steal from a blind person and we all know, in a homeless shelter there are many people who are constantly looking for a chance to snatch something and make a bit of money. Since I am blind, I obviously cannot watch for my things. It is then a low-risk job to try to silently snatch something away from me. Even if it happens before my nose, if I cannot hear it, I will not notice. Even if I hear something and react, I will probably not be able to get enough  certainty  that somebody was actually trying to steal something from me,that I will feel confident starting making a number accusing somebody of theft. It will then be easy for the thief to just retreat, pretend nothing happened and melt in the crowd.

People quickly learn I cannot see and they will soon find ways to take advantage of that. the vulnerability of not being able to see what is going on around you, opens a whole world of opportunities for a jerk to take advantage of. Some weeks ago, some guy walked towards my bed and stopped a few feet from where I was. As he remained standing in front of me, he pulled out a smartphone and took a picture of me. He did not ask for permission and I certainly never consented to that action. He did it, because he thought I would not notice (even if he was just a few feet from me), as I would not see him. However, I did hear the snapshot sound effect of his smartphone (he was that close to me). He had never tried to do something like that to somebody with normal eye-sight. People 'sniff' weakness in a blind person and quickly find 'courage' to abuse it. A few months ago somebody asked me for an orange. I had another one, so did not mind to give him one. However, when he saw my other orange, he demanded I also give it to him. I did not have any other oranges and I wanted to have one for my breakfast, so I declined his request. He said he was going to buy me another orange early the next morning and insisted I give him my second orange. I did not believe he was going to get me another orange at six in the morning, so I still said 'No'. He was getting more and more frustrated and argued he was very hungry. So I offered him some other food. But he only wanted another orange and explained he actually needed it to make alcohol. I told him I did not want to give him my last orange. He was getting really irritated, and, as he was reaching into my locker, he said he did not understand why I was making it so hard. The whole argument finally caught the attention of the guard post in front of my bed and told my offender to leave me alone.

Sometimes the conflict does not come from the awareness about my blindness by others, but from the opposite. Unavoidably, more often than what it would be for a normal person, I get into some trouble because I trip on somebody or unintentionally do something that pisses somebody off. I may, for example start feeling around looking for something and then touch somebodyelses's phone or other property. He may easily think I am trying to steal it and get very angry about it. As I walk or feel around I may pull a cable and knock of some device. It has also happened to me, I would stop behind somebody and that person gets very upset thinking I am watching him.

For many, many reasons, a homeless shelter is not a place for a blind person. I do not care if you call me disabled person, challenged person or functional diverse. I do not care for political correctness. All I know is that I need help and I do not want you to let me slowly die in this hole.

Thank you very much for your attention reading this letter,

Javier