Helping Hands

by Jessica Bernhard

When you get there, you feel like you must be the only ones - the only group to ever venture out on a cold winter night with soup sloshing in the back of a van, clothes piled up higher than the rear window. But you’re not the first; plenty have come before you. That is how they know what city streets to expect you on. That is why they stay up until the early hours of the morning in hopes of finding your paper bags and the whisper of "midnight run." Sometimes you venture out of the van in uncertainty. Will the danger of the city streets bring in the darkness or the success of your trip? One thing is always sure. They will be there. Sometimes they are waiting for you, their eyes and stomachs starving with hunger, their bodies longing for heat. Other times, they approach you slowly, or not at all. The only sign of their presence, a soft cardboard shelter-box.

The cities’ homeless are the recipients of these late night excursions. They are the same people we, at other times, take for granted. The people lying on the side of the road, or loitering for change. We try to ignore the bearded man who lives in a cardboard box, or the pregnant woman dragging on her last cigarette. It is easy for us to feel superior to these people who survive without a home and/or a job.

When given the experience to go on a midnight run, however, the people in the street become far more than a mere statistic in the commissioner’s files or an obstacle on the way to Bendels. You realize that these people are truly similar to yourself. They go through the same dilemmas and heartaches you do. They like to joke around, have a serious conversation, and are very excited when a coat they needed for warmth happens to come in their size. Not all homeless people are the irresponsible alcoholics, the drug dealers, or mentally ill. So, the question is, what prompts people to become homeless and how can we save or help those that are able to achieve a "normal" life?

While teens don’t currently represent a large population of New York City’s homeless, the Department of Youth Programs feels that there are teen-related problems that are not being adequately addressed in homes or schools. They have established a 24 hour youth hotline devoted to helping runaway, abused, or youth with school or other problems. Manned by young people, the purpose of the hotline is to provide a course of action until a problem can be concluded. "Young people are trained so that they can help their peers," offered Commissioner Cam-marata, who heads the Department of Youth Programs. "We’re trying to create lifelines for these kids with more than thirty cooperating facilities who deal with teen problems every day," he continued. Addition-ally, there is a drop in center in the Bronx. These efforts are probably very important as a means of averting a larger problem before it occurs as an adult.

Dr. Jerry Cammarata