EPISODE 02
Nico Fuentes 0:48
Hello and welcome to Home is a Human Right listening series. Home is a Human Right is produced by a collective of volunteers within mutual aid housing strategies an affiliate of Mutual Aid NYC, with the guidance and support of citywide leaders of the movement for housing justice. For the visually impaired, I am wearing a black dress with dangly earrings. Behind me are two lamps, which are lighting the back purple wall.
We are convening in the midst of mass death, some 500,000 people have died from COVID across the United States. We are weeks into a new administration that continues the legacy of organized abandonment of migrant peoples, the working poor people in prisons and detention centers, teachers, nurses, families and those living without homes. The experience of not having a home has become the norm for nearly 100,000 New Yorkers and as many as 1.2 million are currently on the brink of eviction. The median home price in Manhattan and much of Brooklyn is more than $1 million. One baby in every 100 who was born in New York hospitals is brought home to a shelter. The rate of homelessness in the city today is at least double what it was a decade ago a rate we have not seen since the Great Depression. And 20% of the city's hotels operate as homeless shelters and the city spends upwards of $3.2 billion per year on homelessness problems without solving it. And in family shelters among heads of households, 93% identify as black or brown. Right now, over 200,000 eviction cases are pending in New York City's courts.
But today we are joined by two brilliant, brilliant people that I'm so excited to have. Roberto Manuel is an event planner and promoter and an advocate with the Upper West Side Open Hearts Initiative and Homeless Can't Stay Home. Homeless Can't Stay Home is a coalition of member-led organizations fighting to hold New York City and state accountable for the lives of homeless New Yorkers during this unprecedented global public health crisis. The coalition is working together to make sure all homeless New Yorkers are kept safe for the duration of the pandemic and that our city and state elected officials are prioritizing permanent housing for as many people as possible as quickly as possible. We're also joined by Celina Trowell, who is a homeless union organizer at Local New York. Using her experience in homeless services and active ant-Black racism community work, Celina organizes directly-impacted folks to combat the racist carceral systems of homelessness in New York City in order to gain a home guarantee for all New Yorkers. Hi, you two. Welcome.
Roberto, so a lot has happened for you. I was wondering if you wanted to, you know, catch us up on what's been the latest?
Roberto Mangual 3:52
Um, yeah, I've been going through a lot of change lately. After having no other choice but to go into the homeless system and, as I call it, "duke it out" for the past couple of years, I have gone from hopping from shelter to shelter, fighting with staff, fighting for housing to now finally receiving our studio apartment in the Bronx. I found myself having to break constant habits from how I describe it being "institutionalized" in a system that kept me on a time schedule. But everything, everything comes with a price. And this price I'm gladly willing to pay, because it leads towards a positive light.
Um, I fought homelessness for almost three years. It's not the most positive place. It's not the most inspirational place. Somebody that's not very mentally strong can be easily broken.
Nico Fuentes 5:00
Right.
Roberto Mangual 5:01
And no, I'm lucky that I found people throughout the years that kept me focused and kept me on a positive path. And now it's just up to me to make sure it doesn't happen again. And from what I learned from my time in the homeless system, make sure that in my future when I do decide to build a family that I supply my children, the tools and knowledge needed to make sure that they don't have to go through the same experience with the homeless system that I did.
Nico Fuentes 5:40
Right. So tell us about the first shelter that you were in before Ward's Island, or I believe Clark Thomas.
Roberto Mangual 5:55
Um, yeah, so my first shelter experience was when I was 19. I was there briefly, got into an argument with my father, arguments spilled out towards his intimate other, and then I was just kicked out at the age of 19. I was taken to a shelter, I believe the name of the shelter was Willow. And there on my first night day, I was assaulted by two men. While I was trying to sleep, something that for me, traumatize me in a way that kept me running from dealing with my homeless status for about-let's see, I was 19, like about five years. And then once I didn't have anywhere else to turn, it was just either do this, or keep going on a cycle of just hopping from place to place. And I didn't want to do that, because I wanted to stabilize my life.
Nico Fuentes 6:54
Right. So then, this first shelter as a teenager, there was no sort of like...you didn't receive any sort of assistance from the administration or managers?
Roberto Mangual 7:11
To be honest, I wasn't there long enough to see a caseworker, I walked in, in the middle of the night one night, and I believe it was the end of summer, and then I had that experience, I went down and try to speak to somebody about it, what could be done, and they told me they couldn't do anything. Because the way that the men's shelters' living areas are designed, due to privacy reasons, they can't be any cameras in the living spaces or sleeping areas. So it was my word against two other men. And once I seen that scenario, kind of start playing itself out, I just packed up my bags and left, right.
Nico Fuentes 7:53
And then you transferred to a different shelter.
Roberto Mangual 7:59
But I house hopped for about four years between my father, family members, friends. And then um, after that my first official shelter that I stood there, a good eight months was over on West Burnside and (incomprehensible). At that institution, I was constantly being given new caseworkers because they were constantly quitting, or they were being transferred to other places, so I saw myself hitting the reset button a lot with caseworkers. I wasn't sought out, you know, I didn't feel like a priority or somebody was trying to help me, because these people will only come looking for my attention when it had to do with me signing a piece of paper or IOP.
Nico Fuentes 8:51
What's an IOP?
Roberto Mangual 8:54
To be honest, I don't even know what the syllables are, because they will just throw the paper in your face. Like, "can you sign this for me?" And then when you ask questions, though, it would kind of like, bother them. So on that variation of eight months, I went through like about five caseworkers and about four different housing specialists.
Nico Fuentes 9:18
Wow. What can you-do you recall kind of what-for somebody who's never been in a situation like you have that you're describing? What kind of interactions are you like with these caseworkers? Like what sort of questions were they asking, or what sort of services were they supposed to be giving you?
Roberto Mangual 9:43
They don't ask questions, to be honest. It's just "You're my client." The first thing I tell you is "Go to HRA, go to the welfare office, open up on open public assistance case and then in a month, you should have a voucher," and after the voucher is issued to you, it's kind of like when you take and you nurture an animal that's sick, and then once you get it back to health, just throw it back into the wild be like, "There you go, go survive." It's kind of like the same scenario. Here's a piece of paper, godspeed, may God be with you, hopefully you find something.
Nico Fuentes 10:23
Right. So no other sort of-my impression is that it's not a very involved process. It's very, like-
Roberto Mangual 10:32
There's no guidance, I went into the system, telling every caseworker the same thing, I don't have a problem putting in footwork, all I'm looking for is direction and guidance, you tell me what I need to do, I'll make sure that I follow your word, to the brim. And then I'll go through the process. That's all I was asking for. And it took about a year and a half going on two years, so be paired up with the right staff to be able to get me where I am today.
Nico Fuentes 11:01
And that was most your most recent?
Roberto Mangual 11:04
Yeah, which was um, I was transferred to the Keeners Men's Shelter after I was transferred out of Clark Thomas after a few events that happened with me reaching out to media, speaking out with the situations that were going on with COVID, kind of just exposing the fact that we were in a dorm-style space and we couldn't even practice social distancing because every bed was separated by three feet.
Nico Fuentes 11:33
Wow. So, you're talking about being 19 in the shelter, then now we're talking about your most recent experience. So, what happened between, so you were transferred into Clark Thomas from somewhere, Clark Thomas the shelter, from somewhere else previously?
Roberto Mangual 11:58
Yeah, I had two series of events to happen. And my first and second shelter my first shelter was over in Furlan, and then I was after that I was transferred to a MICA shelter, "MICA," "M-I-C-A," is a brand, kind of like Help USA, so is another shelter umbrella. But this shelter I was sent to for the simple fact that it houses people with disabilities and physical disabilities, so this was a better fit for me as a disabled man to be watched over while looking for a home.
So the first time I got transferred was because I got into an altercation with a staff member. They wrongfully went through my property, searched my things, and when I put up a complaint, the individual that I put up the complaint about didn't like it. So he went out of his way to approach me ,and protocol in the shelter is whenever a staff member caseworker, whoever it is, to approach or come into the living areas of the shelter, they must be accompanied by a security guard. So when that happened, and he came into my room, he asked the security guards to stay outside in the hallway, which already is breaking protocol, then I was told by this individual who had helped me recently, at the time, when I've had an epileptic episode in the bathroom. He didn't like that. I put up the complaint against him, put it on paper, sent it off to DHS headquarters. He went out of his way to tell me, "Well, let's see who's gonna help you next time you have a seizure, because right now what you're doing is that you're biting the hand that feeds you."
So after I put up the complaint, explained my situation to the director of the shelter. two days later, I'm being presented with something called an administrative transfer, which, in the system of the Department of the Homeless Services, is made out to be done randomly. But every time that I've received one, it's been because either I've put up a complaint, or I've decided to speak out. And in the system, it looks like a random shuffle of an individual, but it's put out to just remove what they don't want to deal with. So after that, I was transferred to the MICA site on 165th and Park Avenue in the Bronx, and it was the same situation. I got into a verbal dispute with a nighttime supervisor because I came back to the shelter. My bed was drenched in some weird liquids. I asked him to go to the cameras. He looked like he was agitated and kind of took out his frustrations on me. Um, I was told to go downstairs into the laundry room and clean my sheets. When I come upstairs an hour later, I have NYPD looking for me. I spoke to the cops very calmly, I was still cuffed and left in a lobby of a men's shelter, handcuffed for 45 minutes waiting for an ambulance that never came.
Roberto Mangual 15:18
So NYPD from the 42nd precinct took me to the Lincoln hospital where I was placed in a psych ward overnight, to be mentally cleared before I can re-enter that shelter. And that next morning, when I came back after being released in a psych ward, I put the complaint in with the shelter director. And after speaking with her, I had an epileptic episode leaving her office in the lobby. Two days later, I get another administrative transfer, and I'm sent to Clark Thomas and Ward's Island.
Nico Fuentes 16:04
So can you explain-there's three different shelters, and you're a single adult navigating the system. So can you explain for people who have no understanding of how the shelters work, how are single adults filtered into them? And like what is the literal housing such like, what is the shelter situation?
Roberto Mangual 16:31
To be honest, I believe that DHS doesn't have a way to filter individuals. I've seen this multiple times. I don't believe that DHS has a system to organize people to place them in any specific shelters that care to specific needs of an individual right. DHS runs on a system where it's first bed open, that's where your name pops up, that's where you will be placed. Before I was placed in my first official shelter, I was misplaced in Brooklyn in a shelter called the Renaissance. And come to find out, to my knowledge, that shelter was a shelter for people with mental illness. And I was stuck there for four days before I was sent, and then registered to Furlan Place on West Burnside.
Mind you, when I walk into 30th Street at the Bellevue, I hand the individual my social security card, and my ID and they registered me as an individual that had the same name as me, that was 75 years old. Yeah, so I don't believe that DHS has a filter system, is first come, first serve, first bed that opens up, they put your name to when they send you out to that facility.
Nico Fuentes 17:55
And the literal living quarters that you're put into, what does it-can you describe what they're like?
Roberto Mangual 18:03
I've experienced different types of living quarters, not every shelter is the same. My first shelter, I went from there being 10 beds and kind of like an open studio space.
And then at MICA, which is my second shelter, it was more kind of like a military dorm-style where it was you have individual rooms with an open space, five beds on one side of the wall, and another five beds on the other side of the wall. And then the last one that I dealt with, which was Clark Thomas, that one felt the most like jail to me.
It was a dorm-style, kind of like minimum-security -ail vibe to it. Very plaster-y colors, something that you walk into, the energy feels heavy, the atmosphere feels depressing. That was like the worst one I experienced out of all of them.
It was very depriving to me as an individual, having to share a space on a floor. Even though you have barricades that were made out of cinder blocks, it's still an open space. You're on a floor with 100 other homeless tenants. You have 100 people sharing two bathrooms that have six six toilet stalls and four showers. So you do the math.
The best way I can describe the bathroom situation when I was at Ward's Island was kind of like walking into a public pool. The showers had no temperature control. It was: press the button, shower comes out, just like in a jail. And it shocked me because after I went into that shelter, I started to do the research, and you see reports that say that these shelters get massive amounts of funding, millions of dollars, and it's just like you walk into a into a shelter, and you never get the feeling or you never get the visual of a million dollar facility.
Nico Fuentes 19:32
Right, right. So the process of you looking into, and kind of researching and studying the system that you were living in like the conditions that you're living in, you found out some really interesting things about money. Can you tell us a little bit about what you were finding? Like, what were you were able to track?
Roberto Mangual 20:41
Specifically for me, I started doing my research when I fell under the Help USA umbrella.
Nico Fuentes 20:49
Right, and can you explain what Help USA is?
Roberto Mangual 20:51
Help USA is a shelter company that was forged back in I believe the mid or late 80s by the father of our governor, Mr. Cuomo. So that's the first thing that kind of caught my attention, just that I could be living in a space not knowing that the owners, or the family that are tied to the owners, are the same ones that are governing the state that I live in. So to me, it was like, wow, you know? But what caught my attention at first was because I was in the shelter system, as a child, with my father, and Help USA to me, being in a family branch, it was very, it made me feel safe. I know, I went through the shelter before, I was like, "Oh, this is a name that I know, these people are serious," you know, the first time my father went into the system, we got out in a year and a half, the second time we got he got himself out in eight months. So I was like, you know, it's a reliable name. Hopefully, they could do the same for me. And in the singles branch, it was not what I remember, anything at all, as a child in the family branch of the Department of Homeless Services.
So once I started doing that, the research, I found out that, you know, that specific shelter company was tied to the Cuomo family, and then I crossed a couple of articles that spoke about an investigation with Cuomo when he was signing up to run for governor, and how he was under investigation for rumors of him funding his campaign with the money that came from Health USA back in 2016. So that caught my attention. And then supposedly, the report that I read stated that, in 2016, Help USA was scheduled to receive $356 million in funding from the government. But at the end of that year, they ended up receiving above that amount, at 420 million. So that's why our governor was put under investigation, because they just felt like they they were receiving extra money, and no one can kind of pinpoint why. So once I'd seen that number, I started playing divide and multiply and add and subtract, and supposedly Help USA has 20 shelters in the state of New York.
Nico Fuentes 23:34
In the state, not just the city?
Roberto Mangual 23:35
Yeah, in the state of New York. And then if you'd say 420 million and divided by 20, that's about anywhere between 12 to 15 million a shelter in funding. Now, I don't believe that for a shelters mortgage, it shouldn't be no more than about probably 750,000 to probably a million for the property a year. And then you have food, insurance, paychecks, you take all of that out, and we're just summarizing, you still got leftover about 10 million.
So the question is, where are those 10 million gone? And these facilities do not do not say $10 million.
Nico Fuentes 24:22
Right, I mean, you described the restroom as being like a public pool.
Roberto Mangual 24:27
Technically, it has the same mechanisms, same toilets, same showers.
Nico Fuentes 24:33
Which, no shade to, like, public parks officials or anything like some of these public pools can be pretty nice, but this does not sound...
Roberto Mangual 24:45
It's not that it was dirty to me it was just like it's inhumane. It's okay for a pool because you're just going in to rinse yourself out, but for somebody to have to use that on a daily basis, and for that to be the norm for you to relieve yourself or keep yourself clean, it's just degrading.
Nico Fuentes 25:03
Right. And then you did some calculations on like, how much city was spending on your, like, literal bed. Can you tell us what you found?
Roberto Mangual 25:18
After I started doing my research, and this is after I was associated and introduced to the Homeless Can't Stay Home, it was them that explained to me like, at first, I thought I was just living there for free. You know, DHS claims that they're a nonprofit organization. So I never really understood why I needed to have a public assistance case. Because what the explanation that was given to me was that public assistance, you need the case open so you can receive your voucher, and they don't want that paying for your voucher. So that was the explanation that was given to me.
Little did I know, that the budget letters that they were sending me every month, technically was the receipt for what they were giving the shelter for me to stay there. So once I start looking at these numbers, they're stating that, you know, HRA provides the shelter with $3500 a month for me to sleep on a metal frame bed, on a jail cot, it stunned me because what $3500 right now, with the space that I live in, I could pay my rent for two years. But then it it bothered me even more that they were willing to invest more money to keep me in a shelter than they did to move me out. Because when I compared that amount to the amount that HRA was willing to cover and rent for me to move out, it was less than half.
Nico Fuentes 26:55
So literally, they're making more money by keeping you there?
Roberto Mangual 27:01
It's more profitable to farm a homeless person in a shelter than it is to help them to move out. I ran a couple numbers after I found all of that out, and for me alone, to keep me to keep me in a shelter, in a year's time, it would cost them about 40 grand a year to keep me in a shelter. But then if you change and turn it around and look at how much there will be spending for me to pay rent to assist with that, be permanently housed, it would be about $28,000. Actually, no, it's less than that. It's about $13,000. So there's a profit margin there of about $28,000. And it's being given to the shelters.
And then I started thinking to myself, why aren't things you know, upside down? Why aren't they investing $3500 for me to move out, but instead, they're paying that amount for me to stay in the shelter? Which is to me, it's unreasonable because for a legal apartment for me just to live in is about, if I was to go into the regular market, would be anywhere between $1300 and $1600.
Nico Fuentes 28:25
Right. And then at any point, were you given like a list of places that were available for you like in terms of the vouchers, were you given contacts for landlords or?
Roberto Mangual 28:41
I asked that at the first shelter that I went to. Because I was like, "Give me information, anything that you have."f And the first thing that they told me was "Go looking for housing, for apartment brokers." I was like, okay, but then I told them, do you have any direct lines to like landlords, you know, probably do you guys have a list of buildings that have apartments open? And they gave me a list of landlords from 2016. Right, now mind you, I went into the system on June 2 of 2018. So I looked at them, like, "Why you giving me a list from two years ago?" They was like "No, you know, the list is the same, everything that's on there is going to be the same. They just keep reprinting it every two years." So I took the list. I call the landlords and the building numbers. And a lot of the numbers were disconnected. They weren't updated. And then the people that did pick up the phone that were there told me that they didn't accept the city First Five voucher. So it was kind of like a false hope.
Nico Fuentes 29:56
Right. And the voucher, to my knowledge, the voucher amount has been pretty consistent, was the voucher amount consistent through throughout your time navigating?
Roberto Mangual 30:08
In the three years that I've been in the system, I had two vouchers. I had Link Five, which was first, but then after I got transferred from the first shelter into MICA, I got word that supposedly Link Five ran out of funding, had to shut it down, and then about two months later, they came up with City Fetch Five.
Nico Fuentes 30:34
Do you know what that stands for? Like the-can you clarify for folks who?
Roberto Mangual 30:40
I don't know what that stands for, to be honest, they don't explain any of that to us. "Here's your voucher. This is how much it covers right, go find something." So I did that, and there was a lot of knocking, a lot of calling. In my time of having a voucher, I've spoken to about 50 different apartment brokers, but how I like to call them gatekeepers. And you know, I was informed that supposedly it's illegal for an apartment broker or landlord to not accept the voucher. On paper, the voucher is made seem like it's accepted everywhere. But how is it accepted everywhere? And all I keep saying is all I keep receiving from the apartment brokers was "We accept it. We don't have anything for it at the moment."
Um, it got so serious that I went to the I went to a Bronx borough senator's office over on 163 Street and interviewed, and I sat down with them. And I told them "Look, I'm homeless. I used to live in this area. I need assistance, um, you know, finding a home." They was like, "What did they give you in a shelter? You know, what disabilities do you have?" I presented them the voucher. And in 10 minutes, the housing representative that they had there that you know would take listing of landlords that come to them and tell them "Look, I have this open," so they could refer it to the to the community, told me "I can't help you. It's it's just a price that's too low. It's below market value. I don't know what I can do for you at the moment."
Nico Fuentes 32:31
And how much is the voucher again,
Roberto Mangual 32:33
The voucher, ever since I received it, has been $1,265.
Nico Fuentes 32:42
Celina, I'm wondering if we can drop in here and kind of talk a little bit about, like, how we got here, because Roberto was tracking the past three years but it seems to me that this has been kind of building and building and building for quite some time.
Celina Trowell 33:06
Hello, everybody. I just wanted to take a moment to help uplift a couple of things that Roberto has shared. So when he was talking about "the IOP," that's an independent living plan, right? Or they call it a "SP," a service plan. And so basically, you know, the trigger and that is "independent." And the reason why that is, because, as shelter "clients," I say that in quotations, you carry the onus, you carry the burden. And so these documents that you must sign, when you meet with your case, manager, bi-weekly, weekly, however the case may be depending on your level of need or whatever, ad I'll get to that in a minute, must show that it's not the facility or the provider that is the issue or the problem, if there's a hindrance to move out, it is you the client. And so your meeting with the case manager could be every two weeks if you are considered a long term stayer, right. So I'm going to share a whole lot of providers secrets, right? Like, if you are a long term stayer, then they want to meet with you weekly, because there must be an issue with why you're still here. Not the fact that there is no affordable housing. You're not trying hard enough, right? "MICA" stands for, it's a horrible acronym, honestly, that needs to update, it is "Mentally Ill and Chemical Abuse."
Nico Fuentes 34:45
Wow.
Celina Trowell 34:46
So for those right, so we don't consider the fact that we all, you know, on whatever level it looks like, you know, I can't be the only one on this call that has ever dealt with anxiety. That's a mental health complexity. We all have different levels of mental health. Nobody's ill, you know, like this is not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And "chemical abuse," like we want to say like, we could say drug users, right? And people who use drugs, right, we want to center the person, not the actions, because they're more than that, right? But that's, you know, these facilities, these MICA facilities are, like as to what Roberto shared, places where they will warehouse anybody that may seem like a trouble for the provider, right, those with chronic mental health, or chronic medical conditions that need a lot more resources than the idea is that the facilities are somehow better equipped or have the resources to address it, it's so flooded, that they have nowhere near that amount of resources, and providers and services needed to address peoples' needs. Because if you have been institutionalized by the state, in one way, present in our jails, and you may come home and deal with some complexities from that have nowhere to go because you probably got kicked out of NYCHA for very small amount of marajuana use, right, or what have you, now you have nowhere to go, and now you end up in a shelter. They're going to say "Oh, okay, your assessment didn't look too right, I'm gonna dump you here." And that, while you're at it, we have we barely have any services to provide you to kind of get you on a path of stability with yourself to deal with the harms that the state has inflicted upon you. And I just want to say, like, quickly, even to Roberto, like a word to that, like, it's honestly not just up to you, like, I don't want you to feel as if you have that burden of keeping yourself housed. We live in a society that has created the conditions that made you homeless and kept you homeless. You didn't do that. So I want to make it very clear, right, that there's a lot of gaslighting that has been going on to the past almost 100 years, when we really start to break it down in terms of why homelessness exists, who is homeless, and why is it so hard for people to come out of the cycle of homelessness.
It's almost 100 years, we're going back to 1934? Right, the New Deal. Right, we're going back to Depression, with housing policies that have been rooted in white supremacy, that have been rooted and capitalism, which is inherently, you know, anti-Black within itself, have played out and evolved, been maintained, to create a situation where, to your point, Nico, 90% of the people who identify as homeless are Black and brown, or where 40% of Black people are homeowners, as opposed to 70% of the white people who own their home. Right. I was taking notes, Roberto. Also, you know, yeah, it's a huge conflict of interest when we look at the situation with Cuomo, right, who under his tenure, his last decade, homelessness has increased across the state to 92,000. That doesn't include the people who double up, the ones who couchsurf, our siblings that are in the street, those who are in subways seeking refuge, it doesn't even include them, that 92,000, that's just on the books.
Okay, so and then, like you said, with how many more people pending homelessness like, you know, we've got an eviction, pending homelessness, right, like there's a "dot dot dot" there: "pending homelessness..."and we're talking about a person who is known for his bullying, known for his austerity politics and budgets, known for his anti-Black, brown, undocumented, indigenous, anti-poor policies, his family being in charge of shelter, right. They're also typically what happens to, as far as like you say, what I know, and so let me back up. The reason why I could say the thing that I'm sharing here is because I was part of that system to help perpetuate the cycle of homelessness. I am not ashamed to say where I, when I deal with people and I go out and I engage with folks, it's a different level of a conversation you have when people can talk about the ills and harms that a system has cause them, they don't quite expect you to validate it. And they typically, if it happens, it comes from a sense of just listening, and I'm saying no, I've been here because I was probably the person that had to key into your room, and whether you liked it or not, told you it wasn't yours.
Nico Fuentes 40:14
Right. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Celina Trowell 40:18
Yeah, absolutely. So I was a shelter case manager, right for a couple of years. In the very community I am a lifelong resident in, right in Brownsville. And it was in a family shelter, because I'm very privy to what it's like in a single adult shelter, which, you know, very different. Roberto spoke on it. I felt-I remember, you know, hope you were saying it's so different as a child. And this is like, yeah, we all are like virtue signaling "save the children." And then when you become an adult, the issue is this neoliberalism of "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and it's your fault, you're here, you get yourself out as an adult." Very different ballgame when it comes to single adult shelters and adult families. It is absolutely. The funding looks different. So we talk about what they may receive federally, you know, state, city, the reason why the facilities aren't seeing is because it's going to salaries, and let me be very clear, the salaries are not going to the case managers. Oftentimes, they're understaffed, overworked, and there's a lot of high turnover, because (incomprehensible) says they have to do it, I can tell you that for a fact, right. And it also goes to the developer partners of these providers, as they build out their real estate portfolio, that's either acquiring more buildings to turn into shelters, or getting into the game as landlords, where you think one we have the beautiful opportunity of providing more supportive housing, because they know that they have shelters for people who need housing, but what they do is they say "Eh, we'll just skim it or give a little bit of supportive housing for our current clients, and then open it up."
And I think what we're looking at right now is people in shelters, um, have a need for housing, and then people who are like doubled up and all those things, or they have a need for extremely low income, affordable housing, right. So there's a lot of complexities there. But that's why people aren't seeing the money when they go into these shelters. And oftentimes, they don't own their buildings, they rent too. So, I mean, when I also talk about how we got here, and I started to mention a Green New Deal, like, you know, you want to go all the way to like, Jim Crow, right, even, you know, as things begin to integrate, or, you know, there was the, the threat of the Black laws and segregation. President Roosevelt during the Depression, his attempt to, I'm taking notes, I just want to make sure I'm trying to give a clear understanding. I'm gonna give a really messy timeline.
Nico Fuentes 43:20
We're following.
Celina Trowell 43:22
Okay, and I'm sorry, I see in the chat. I did not introduce myself.
Nico Fuentes 43:27
That's on me. You but you di,d you just-you totally caught us up
Celina Trowell 43:35
My name is Celina Trowell I am the homelessness union organizer here at VOCAL-NY. So what we do at VOCAL-NY, we work to end mass incarceration, the war on drugs, AIDS, HIV, and I'm homelessness, right. And we do that by leading a membership-led organization of directly-impacted people, I'm just the organizer that finds people and brings them together. But it is the people directly impacted by these issues who are the experts, and they bring their expertise to the table, create a new table or pull a chair to the table they weren't even invited at, and they work to change the policies and laws that have oppressed them so that we can end these issues of oppression here in New York state. So yeah, I don't know, Nico, if you want me to kind of like continue to get into like the historical breakdown on where we are, or...
Nico Fuentes 44:31
Yeah, I mean, I think you've provided a really solid historical viewpoint, and maybe something that you did mention is the sort of carceral response to somebody who is living without a house or home. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit more on like, how do you think of carceral systems and this idea of the shelter industrial complex, which is an idea that I'm hearing a lot, and maybe some people have heard about the prison industrial complex, but maybe if you could tease out a little bit more for us what is actually, what we're talking about when we say the word "carceral."
Celina Trowell 45:14
It's the very act of imprisonment, right? Through incarceration. And so incarceration can, or these carceral responses can be built into many systems, it can be built into our schools, our education system, housing, it could be built into immigration, and basically, what this means is that you go into an institution or system, and oftentimes are given a number. And there are, you know, barriers and parameters in which you must function in exchange for the basic services that should be provided by a state that is caring for people like, let's be for real here, because if we're really talking about who is worthy of services, who's worthy of benefits, this country is still reaping the benefit of indigenous and Black communities. So we're owed a lot still, as it is happening, right?
And so what happens, when I say "capitalism," or what we need to discuss this andit compound as "racial capitalism" is that all the things, all these policies that came down, whether it had been the GI Bill that came right around the hill of the Great Depression, where, you know, people were able to come back and have access to job training, and homes, and education. That wasn't given to Black veterans, or those of color, absolutely not. They were dishonorably discharged. Right. And so when there were efforts to ensure that there were housing booms, because during the Great Depression, so many homes had been lost, that home ownership went to everybody, that was not Black, right, or people of color, right? And so what helps, In a situation like that, what then helped to enforce that, to protect that, were carceral systems. Break the law, in communities that you don't belong in, even if you work there, you have sundown towns, you go to prison, right like, or when we think about public housing, and what that looked like, because public housing was initially segregated. But because there was a housing boom, they were able to move all the poor, middle class white folks who lost their homes, into those homes or into the housing that they were able to build, then they finally decided, well, we might as well integrate these public housings, because the waiting list for poor black folks had exacerbated, and throughout that entire time, because there was no access to job training, was no access to the homes, the Black community got poorer and poorer. And that's when they begin to federally-subsidize public housing. It didn't always start out that way. And so what happened then? You make one wrong move, you get kicked out and banned from housing altogether, that still happens to this day. But then, who iss that impacting, if public housing looks predominant Black and brown? And so you have this carceral process, we're saying, like, if you're getting this subsidized rent from us, you need to follow this rule, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do this, you have to live like this, all while we're putting that poison in your paint. Right? So these are the carceral systems, even though and then you go into what it looks look like, um, that led to White Flight, and then more Black people coming into public housing, and getting policed through that, literally having police in communities because of the disinvestment that was happening, the rioting that was happening, right, the White Flight where there was literally landlords burning down homes and leaving communities, right, and leaving people in peril. So people had to do things to survive. Right. And this is what I mean by "conditions have been created" for people to have to do what they needed to do to survive, that doesn't excuse anything, but we have to understand the context. People needed to eat, people need to have a home over their head. People need to make sure they did what they had to do, and any action of self-agency was shut down. Right. 1968, talking about the Civil Rights, our leaders were sniped out through state-sanctioned violence. Right. Um, when that didn't work, when that was enough, the war on drugs, which was the war on poor people, got put into our communities while other communities got the resources, right? And then from there, our communities got occupied with police.
All of these things created conditions where people got poorer, more people became homeless. And there was no nowhere for people to go because they weren't creating affordable housing anymore. I mean, you talk about redlining. And so, you also talk about people who went through the crack era, and may have felt like they succeeded. And at this point, they were gaslit into feeling as if "The only way to protect what I've gained is to call more police into our communities," all while not realizing the reason why that was the only option is because they robbed you of all the resources that you needed in your education, your housing, your healthcare. And so all that was in your face as a viable solution were police. And then, what we see 30, 40 years later, our communities torn apart. People were getting counted in the census, wherever they were in prison and not in their communities, no resources, so still no housing resources, all those new people living getting kidnapped out of the community by the state. And so we're in situation now, if we look at it further, all those things the police state helps to protect. And then when you go on to a shelter system, you know, the homeless system, Department of Homeless Services here, what we see is we got to tell grown folks "Sign in, sign out, you need my permission if you want to spend the night somewhere. If you don't you lose your bed." You know, it's actions like that, that continue to perpetuate the cycle of homelessness, continue to perpetuate and criminalize the cycle of poverty. And so yeah, you know, I'll stop there.
Nico Fuentes 51:51
Yeah. I mean, something, you know, Roberto, you were sharing that you literally had the police called on you?
Roberto Mangual 52:00
Yeah, wrongfully.
Nico Fuentes 52:02
Yeah, there was like no reason why the police needed to get involved in you were put in jail.
Roberto Mangual 52:08
No, I wasn't put in jail, I was put in a psych ward in the Lincoln hospital. Yeah, just because I have this staff member-
Celina Trowell 52:17
And that's a carceral response.
Roberto Mangual 52:19
-I had I had a nighttime supervisor state that I threatened his life. And I don't understand how that's even possible, because I've never had an issue with this man. The only thing I told him was "Do your job."
Nico Fuentes 52:39
So Celina, can you tell us a little bit more about going a little bit further into the work that you're doing with VOCAL, what right now are you seeing needing to be immediately responded? I mean, there's so much, but what is sitting on your mind that really people need to be starting to look at and organize around?
Celina Trowell 53:06
So right now, we are in a unique time. state budget is underway. It's due April 1. And we need a leadership response to do the right thing to ensure that we have a just budget that not only houses people, but saves lives, right? Because when we talk about housing as healthcare, and we talk about an overdose crisis that is happening with, you know, preventable deaths, you know, what a different world this would be if people had a place to call home. And so we are asking our state legislators to fund what is called a Housing Access Voucher Program. And so this is a statewide voucher program modeled after Section Eight. And what is unique about this is that it covers not only people currently homeless and eligible for public assistance, it goes beyond that. It covers individuals who are undocumented. No other program or proposal addresses that, our undocumented brothers and sisters and siblings. Individuals who receive Social Security income. What we know right now is about 67% of those who are homeless have a disability. But they're not eligible for this option, because they don't have public assistance. So these are the people who are often left behind, right, in the shelter, our elderly and our disabled, our veterans. And then this also covers individuals who have again, like the public housing, um, excuse me, I'm drawing a blank, the public-I literally just said it a minute ago in terms of like the funding-public assistance, that's what I was looking for, covered the public assistance, those who are undocumented. Those who have Social Security. And so it looks to cover a larger group of individuals right now and family members and households, like never before. And we need that on a statewide level. And I say that to amplify the issue of the state not having the same protections as the city. Most people are not aware of that. Where we are a "right to shelter" city, that is not the case in upstate New York, they are not "right to shelter."
Nico Fuentes 55:44
Right. So the city is kind of contained, the shelter system in the city is kind of contained to the city, but the there is no bridge between the wider shelters across. Yeah, can you can you elaborate a little bit?
Celina Trowell 56:00
Yeah, so I don't know too much of the history of that. But just note, it's a travesty within itself. Yeah. And so that's why we're really pushing, we're asking our elected officials, excuse me, our community members to really, really, really push and pressure and demand that our senators, and especially our assembly members, to provide adequate funding for Housing Access Voucher Program, we don't need the crumbs, we need adequate funding in their one house budget. Right. So if you don't know who your representative is, please, there is a state website, you go find out who your assembly person is, and their contact information, and their in-district office, if their in-district office is functioning, and call them up and say that "We need adequate, full funding of the Housing Access Voucher Program." And we also need to ensure that we have resources for our community members to be able to access life-saving drug treatment, like make sure we could undo that the very nasty veto that Cuomo did last year, um, in terms of what it means to need prior authorization for medically-assisted treatment. And what I mean by that is access to the methadone or buprenorphine, the Suboxone, right, he only allowed individuals who have private insurance to remove prior authorization. But if you are basically poor, if you basically have Medicaid, which leaves you to be disproportionately Black and brown, you have to go through hoops of fire and brimstone to access these things, understanding the triggers and pressures that that will cause, especially if you, and how that compounds if you don't have housing. Right, you know, so these are these are things that we are really, really pushing for on a statewide level.
Nico Fuentes 57:59
And then is there any upcoming things that you want people to know about, to pay attention to, I believe March 17, there might be something that you're involved with?
Celina Trowell 58:13
Absolutely. And so, March 17, VOCAL-NY will be hosting the Caring and Compassionate Mayoral Forum. We are looking for our next mayor who will center policies and legislation that will honor care and compassion here in New York City. We just recently launched a platform, the Right to a Roof platform, which demands an end to homelessness through an integrated housing plan and racial equity, policies of racial equity. And what's unique about that city platform for housing as we go down to the city, is that never before has there been a platform that attempts to integrate what bureaucracy has tried to keep suffering intentionally because of the money. We're talking about the renter's, the small landlords, we're talking about NYCHA residents, we're talking about homeless individuals, were saying we need to all come together and ensure that the city has one position that oversees it all. And that way, we can then truly, truly have a platform, not a platform, but a housing plan that then addresses the racial inequity that has fed the city for far too long. And so that's what's very, very unique about the Right to a Roof platform. We're asking for integrated body governing body. And we're asking that it addresses the historical racial harms of housing here in the city. And so that will be late-one of the things one of the many items along with making sure we can end overdose, preventable overdose, is one of the largest groups of people dying from overdoses are older Black men. People who have survived far too long now, right, because they're getting bad batches because of, you know, the fentanyl and all of these things. And we're saying it's ridiculous that facilities like Clark Thomas, for example, or Rikers Island, don't even have Narcan, that can reverse, so people don't have to die, our people don't have to die. And so you we understand that housing is healthcare. And so we know that we need to house our folk, and we need to save our folk. And so you know, we're asking everybody to show up on March 17 as we ask the hard questions, which aren't hard, they're moral, but they seem to be avoided a lot, of what are you going to do to end homelessness in this city, end overdose in a city, end mass incarceration? Right, end, you know, things that shouldn't have to continue to spread because of these conditions, Hep C, HIV, all of these things.
Nico Fuentes 1:01:16
And Roberto, so you are getting settled into your new spot and congratulations!
Roberto Mangual 1:01:23
Yes ma'am.
Nico Fuentes 1:01:24
We are so excited for that. Is there anything that you need from the public, because this is a part of the Mutual Aid NYC affiliated groups, so we are hoping that people will get more hands on in terms of people's lives. Is there anyone that people can contact if they want to help you out or offer furniture or other services?
Roberto Mangual 1:01:55
If anything, they could contact a very close, I consider a friend and associate of mine over at Upper West Side's Open Heart Initiative by the name of Cathy. She was somebody that really supported me while I was out going to the hotel process over on the Upper West Side at the Belleclaire Hotel. Um, yeah, so if anything, they feel like reaching out to me or just extending a helping hand, they can reach out to the Open Hearts, on the Upper West Side, Open Hearts Initiative, and then they'll contact me.
Nico Fuentes 1:02:38
Great. Amazing. And so to close out the show, I wanted to-yes, and also follow VOCAL-NY and Celina as well on Twitter.
Celina Trowell 1:02:59
VOCAL-NY, we have launched as live 11am today, we have launched a 24-hour vigil in front of the office of Speaker Carl Heastie's office, we are really appealing and demanding that our elected leaders take a stand right now and do what's right for the people. And so we are out there calling out the harms that this governor has put on his community. We are also asking that our leaders, our leadership step up right now and take an opportunity to rein in this budget and ensure that it is just and it's compassionate and that it has the funding that it adequately needs. We will be there all night at Carl Heastie's office. So please after this, if there's anything else that you're looking to do, we will literally be there for 24 hours. So come, we will have things for you to do, we will have materials to read from, it's happening literally right now as we speak. So I just want to plug that, let's let our leadership that we elected, we elected, let them know that we expect them to leave in this time. Thank you.
Nico Fuentes 1:04:10
So we're almost out of time today, and I'm so so grateful that Celina and Roberto were able to join us and have given us a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of things to reflect on and think about, and actually though, some next steps to follow up on what Celina says is, first is to donate. So the way that our project works is through donation. We offer an honorarium to all of our speakers, and small honorarium of $250 because we believe that people should get paid for the work that they do. So if you would please contribute to the project that will fund the rest of the next three shows. And you can find a donation link on homeisahumanright.com, and I'll give you all a second to actually commit to donating what you can right now.
And then the next step is to join us next Thursday at 7:30pm. So how it's going to work is that it's an opportunity for all of you who have joined us today to actually come join in on a conversation, and to be initiated into kind of strategies on working with neighbors here in New York, and helping people like get secured housing security. Something that I'm particularly excited about is the Voucher Support Program, in which folks can be able to work directly with people who are navigating the voucher system and just be there to support them. And help file any sort of grievances and discrimination charges that do happen all the time. Call your New York City councilmember and urge them to pass Intro 146 to increase the amount of housing vouchers from $1,265 monthly to market rate. This is really, really important. And if you like have any understanding of what renting in the city is like, this amount of money does not secure housing for anybody, as well as calling your New York state senator and assembly member and urge them to pass the Housing Access Voucher Program to create a statewide voucher that would help homeless New Yorkers statewide. So again, join us next Thursday at 7:30pm for an open conversation about the strategies and Mutual Aid NYC and you'll be able to get directly involved with the work that we do. Have a good night everyone and I will see you all the week after next, so see you there!