Rachel and Her Children (29 page)

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“I measure it: nine feet by twelve …” The
New York Daily News
(February 28, 1986) quotes the words of New York State Assembly member Clarence Norman: “At the Martinique, one adult and three children are living in an apartment no larger than ten by twelve feet. It was so small, we had to back in and back out.”

Interview in Martinique Hotel, December 1985; follow-up interviews, 1986.

Details on the background and present welfare status of Mr. Allesandro’s mother are unclear to me, as are the reasons for the city’s initial refusal to place him with his mother and its apparent willingness to let her reside with him in the Martinique Hotel. Some biographical details, here as in most interviews, are disguised.

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President Reagan:
New York Daily News
, May 22, 1986.

Edwin Meese:
New York Times
, December 10, 1983; also quoted in
Hardship in the Heartland
, cited above.

Marian Wright Edelman:
Homelessness in America
, Community for Creative Non-violence, cited above.

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Limestone caves and surplus food:
Sacramento Bee
, February 25, 1987.

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“President Reagan illegally deferred $265 million that Congress appropriated for other programs in order to fund government pay raises, the General Accounting Office says…. On January 28, Reagan sent up a special program to Congress, announcing 26 deferrals…. The second and most controversial [deferral] involved $28 million for the transportation of food for the homeless.”
(Washington Post, National Weekly Edition
, April 20, 1987.)

“Food-stamp benefits have been cut in half for welfare families living in New York City hotels under a recently implemented federal policy that counts hotel rent as part of the families’ public assistance income.”
(Newsday
, October 22, 1986.) The policy, instituted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, had been in effect for three years but its implementation had been resisted by New York State and City officials until August 1986. On November 7, 1986, the
New York Times
reported that local officials would make up for some of the cuts by an emergency increase in the $64-a-month restaurant allowance homeless families were receiving. By spring of 1987, social workers told me that the food-stamp decrease had been equalized by the increase in the restaurant allowance.

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The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity, and the Politics of Being Human
, by Michael Ignatieff, New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

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Interview in Martinique Hotel, December 1985; follow-up interview, January 1986.

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“$3,000 every month …” According to the Martinique Hotel rate chart, a family of five persons in two rooms pays $2,584 for a 31-day month. Without taxes, the rent becomes $2,203. It is possible that Erica is in error, that my notes are in error, or that the rental cost is capriciously determined.

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Congregate shelter on Forbell Street in Brooklyn: Between 90 and 100 families sleep in one large divided room. (Telephone interviews with shelter personnel, July 1987; CIS “Monthly Report,” October 1986, June 1987.)

“I was forced to sign a paper …” I believe she is in error. The prohibition on cooking is shown to residents in writing upon arrival at the Martinique. No other resident has spoken of signing such a statement.

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“They didn’t go to school last week …” The previous week was Christmas holiday. Reference is to last week before Christmas.

Reference to mail delay in receipt of welfare check: At time of interview, her case had not yet been shifted to the computerized system that enables welfare clients to obtain their benefits from cash-machines.

“I get my check today …” She is unaware that there is no mail on January 1.

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The Road Not Taken, A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems
, ed. by Louis Untermeyer, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

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Interview in Martinique Hotel, January 1986.

Stephen has no subway token to get to school: Homeless families in welfare hotels, according to Kim Hopper, receive a school transportation allowance for each child who is not transported by a school bus. Rachel’s benefits were often cut, however; she may also have used transportation funds for food or other needs, or may have misused these funds.

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Epigraph:
American Notes: A Journey
, by Charles Dickens, New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1985.

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Child poverty rate, decline in federal support, cancellation of White House Conference on Children: Children’s Express Symposium, November 1985, cited above.

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“On average,” according to the
New York Times
(July 30, 1987), “the inflation-adjusted value of welfare payments has fallen 35 percent since 1970.”

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Housing discrimination against children:
New York Times
, Editorial, June 2, 1986. See also
Youth Law News
, March/April 1987.

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New England Journal of Medicine
, Vol. 313, No. 1, July 4, 1985.

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“Relentless efforts” to reduce health services to “low-income persons …” Specific reference is to Medicaid.

According to the
Boston Globe
(February 8, 1987), “Boston’s infant mortality rate rose to 15.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1985 from 11.8 in 1984, said [Mayor Ray Flynn’s] adviser on human services.” In a press release of January 2, 1986, Mayor Flynn, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness, stated: “When it comes to poverty in America, those Americans most asked to bear the brunt of the federal deficit reduction effort are women and children.” See also
Women and Children Last
, by Ruth Sidel, New York: Viking Penguin, 1986.

“The cumulative effect of legislative changes enacted in 1981 will amount to a reduction of …$5.2 billion from child-nutrition programs from 1982 to 1985,” according to the Congressional Budget Office (1983). Cited in
The Making of America’s Homeless
, above.

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Dr. Ellen Bassuk: “The overall depression scores were higher than [for] those who were comparably poor and those registered in a psychiatric clinic.” (Lecture of June 11, 1985, cited above.)

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Information on New York’s Family Court, “status offenders,” and costs of placement: “The Court of Tears and Misery: Inside New York City’s Family Court,” by Jody Adams Weisbrod and Bruce Cory, Vera Institute, New York, 1985, unpublished manuscript distributed at Tarrytown conference, December 1985;
Trends: A Statistical Bulletin on the Status of Children and Families in New York State
. New York State Council on Children and Families, Vol. 1, No. 3, November 1983; telephone interviews with New York University Law School Professor Martin Guggenheim, May 1987. “The more secure or extreme environments cost, easily, $80,000,” according to Professor Guggenheim. John Billenson, Department of Juvenile Justice, New York City, corroborates Mr. Guggenheim’s estimate of $25,000 to $50,000. He believes the $80,000 figure would represent an infrequent
maximum for secure detention. (Telephone interviews, August 1987.)

Placement of homeless children in state custody:
New York Times
, November 8, 1985;
Safety Network
, December 1985.

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Cost per adult prison inmate, New York City: The New York State Commissioner of Corrections cited the figure of $113 a day—$41,245 if projected for a year—in the
New York Times
, April 26, 1987.

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Letter from woman in Martinique describes death of guard: February 16, 1987.

New York prison population approaching 15,000: The
New York Times
(March 25, 1987) estimated the city’s current jail population at “about 14,700.” The figure was expected to reach 16,000 by autumn 1987.
(New York Times
, April 25, 1987.)

Converted ferry boat used as prison:
New York Times
, April 25, 1987. Prison space is so scarce in New York that the head of the state’s prison system now contemplates the purchase of “a decommissioned British troop barge,” formerly used in the Falkland Islands, for use as a “floating prison.”
(New York Times
, June 5, 1987.)

Plans for new prison and reaction of Staten Island borough president:
New York Times
, March 25, 1987.

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“The Mugger and His Genes,” review by Mayor Edward Koch of
Crime and Human Nature
by James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, in
Policy Review
, winter 1986. Excerpt from review: “Through their painstaking and comprehensive analysis of a massive amount of scientific research conducted within the past ten years, Wilson and Herrnstein effectively destroy the shibboleth that poverty causes crime. This notion has been used to justify a list of rapes and broken heads in the past. The authors demonstrate that ‘as income rises so does crime,’ and that ‘chronically criminal biological parents are likely to produce criminal sons,’ irrespective of economic conditions.”

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Information on P.S. 64 in New York City: “New York’s Homeless Children: In the Systems Clutches,” a long and powerful account by Suzanne Daley,
New York Times
,
February 3, 1987. See also “Strangers in Their Own Schools,” Editorial,
Newsday
, March 24, 1986.

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New York Board of Education, lack of information on homeless children:
New York Times
, February 3, 1987.

“One-room schoolhouse” in barracks shelters:
New York Times
, December 3, 1985.

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Long commutes for homeless children in Westchester County:
New York Times
, November 2, 1986.

Ten-year-old commutes to school in Yonkers 60 miles twice a day:
New York Times
, April 23, 1987.

Motels in other counties offer cheaper rooms:
Reporter Dispatch
(Gannett Westchester Newspapers), May 30, 1987.

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“Is there a reason she must ride to Yonkers every day?” A state law, according to the
New York Times
(July 19, 1987) mandates that “children must return to their former school district in [Westchester] County to attend school.” Half the transportation cost, the
Times
reports, is paid with federal funds.

On weekends, homeless families in New York City compete for space with prostitutes:
Perchance to Sleep: Homeless Children Without Shelter in New York City
, National Coalition for the Homeless, December 1984. Certain hotels in New York City, termed “hot-sheet hotels” because they rent rooms by the hour to prostitutes, are also used to house homeless families when there are no other options, according to Kim Hopper.

Increase of 500 percent in families seeking shelter in Washington, D.C., data on the Annex, city’s reaction:
Washington Post
, January 8, 9, 24, 1987.

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The Pitts Hotel:
New Republic
, March 18, 1985.

U.S. Congressman Ted Weiss:
Time
, October 15, 1984.

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New York City’s high school drop-out rate is placed by New York City Council member Andrew Stein at “40 percent overall, 70 percent among minority groups.” (“Children of Poverty,”
New York Times Magazine
, June 8, 1986.) The latter are statistically the poorest children in New York City. According to the Urban League, “72 percent of black children do not complete high school in
New York City.”
(Status of Black New York Report
, New York Urban League, 1984.) Another
New York Times
report (February 26, 1987) places the city-wide drop-out rate, between ninth and twelfth grades, at 54 percent: considerably higher than official figures indicate.

Homeless children out of school: “In Los Angeles, ‘regarding school attendance, the Travelers Aid study determined that, of the children in their study old enough to attend school, 43 percent were not currently attending.’” U.S. Conference of Mayors, April 1987.

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“Concealment is apparently important …” Concealment takes place on a national scale also. When the United Nations proclaimed 1987 “The Year of Shelter for the Homeless,” it prepared a film on homeless people in Brazil, Sri Lanka and New York City. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. intervened. In the words of a former U.S. diplomat, “We just gave them what we thought was political advice for their own good.” The political advice hinted that the U.S. Congress, which was currently withholding $110 million owed the U.N. for 1986, might find fault with the film because it did not emphasize what the diplomat termed “the individual-rights element”—i.e., “the fact that these are people who in some cases wish to stay on the streets….”
(The Progressive
, March 1987.)

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Interviews in Martinique Hotel, December 1985; follow-up interviews, 1986.

Disguise of persons in this book is proportionate to the degree of jeopardy in which they stand or in which their words may place them. Kim’s words and certain other factors leave her vulnerable to retaliation. Her background, if accurately described, would identify her readily. Biographical data therefore is more heavily disguised in this case than in any other chapter.

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Tuberculosis in homeless shelters: According to the
New York Times
(March 30, 1987), tuberculosis “is a rapidly growing problem among the homeless in New York City,” but is found “almost entirely among men….”

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Number of vacant city-owned units in New York and estimates for costs of rehabilitation: New York City Council, study completed November 1986, published January 1987, cited above; former HRA Commissioner James P. Dumpson, in study commissioned by David Dinkins, 1987, cited above; interviews with Robert Hayes and others at National Coalition for the Homeless, 1987;
Village Voice
, April 1, 1986;
Newsday
, November 28, 1986;
New York Times
, January 21, 1987;
New York Post
, April 23, 1987. See also
Room to Spare But Nowhere to Go
, a report by New York City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin, April 23, 1987.

“The cost of rehabilitating a unit varies. The first apartment viewed by [Committee members] cost over $30,000 to renovate, yet other apartments on the tour cost as little as $4,500 to renovate. ‘Gut’ rehabilitation can cost from $20,000 to $30,000….” (City Council.)

“Rehabilitation costs on city-owned property have risen to more than $30,000 a unit and they continue to rise.”
(New York Times
, January 21, 1987.)

“The city … cites the $50,000 to $60,000 rehab cost per unit as prohibitively expensive.”
(Village Voice
, April 1, 1986.)

In a 145-page report (April 23, 1987), City Comptroller Harrison Goldin claimed the city could house 4,000 homeless families in vacant units of partially unoccupied city-owned buildings within a year or 18 months. Of these 4,000 units, he noted, over 1,700 could be readied for occupancy at a cost of “perhaps $14 to $15 million”—at most, $9,000 each. The issue has become heavily politicized, but it appears to be agreed that thousands of units could have been made habitable up to 1987 for $30,000 or less: almost exactly what is paid each year to house a family of five persons at the Martinique Hotel. (Family of five in two rooms at the Martinique pays $27,000 to $31,000 per year, depending on whether taxes are subtracted after first three months.)

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“No
heat and
no
hot water” at the Brooklyn Arms: According to the city council study, “Heat and hot water can be scarce, particularly in the winter.”

Welfare workers fearful to visit rooms: “The CIS workers try to contact residents once every month, but cannot visit residents in their rooms, due to an HRA determination that it is too dangerous….” (City Council.)

The Brooklyn Arms Hotel, according to the
New York Daily News
(July 14, 1986), is “owned by Bertram Fields” and “leased to independent operators.” William Bastone of the
Village Voice
states that it is leased from Mr. Fields by Morris Horn and his partners.

Alleged involvement of guards in drug trade at Brooklyn Arms:
New York Daily News
, July 23, 1986.

Fire, garbage, alleged lack of fire alarm, etc., at Brooklyn Arms:
New York Daily News
, July 12, 1986.

Political contributions by operators of Brooklyn Arms:
New York Daily News
, July 15, 1986.

Newsday
(November 7, 1986) reports that, prior to the fire, three people had died in elevator accidents in the hotel and that the hotel had “about 500 housing code violations” at the time of the fire.

Parents charged with endangerment, arrested and jailed prior to burial of children:
New York Daily News
, July 14 and 18, 1986.

Hotel not criticized by city: “Officials said there was no indication that neglect by the landlord had led to the fire.” (New
York Times
, July 13, 1986.)

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Burial funds increased: “The city is considering raising the funeral benefits it provides welfare recipients, Mayor Koch said yesterday after meeting with a Brooklyn minister in connection with the deaths of four young children in a welfare hotel.” (New
York Daily News
, July 15, 1986.) “City officials yesterday moved up by nine months the effective date of higher burial benefits authorized for welfare recipients…. The move, prompted by the deaths of four children in a Brooklyn welfare hotel, will immediately increase burial benefits from $250 to $900.”
(Newsday
, July 18, 1986.)

In June of 1987, the Brooklyn Arms was again the subject of brief news attention. Senator Daniel Moynihan, denouncing conditions in New York’s welfare hotels as
“a scandal, an outrage, an ulcer,” according to the
New York Times
(June 2, 1987), “singled out one hotel in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Arms, as filthy and as a fire hazard…. ‘It is a place where—unless God spares them—children are going to die.’”

Details on Allerton Hotel: New York City Council.

Details on Bayview Hotel: “A convicted loan shark who owes the city more than $40,000 in back taxes admits to pulling down $600,000-a-year in profits from housing the homeless in the city’s most expensive welfare hotel.” The figure of $100 per night is also cited.
(New York Daily News
, December 8, 1985.)