“I’ve been on and off for about twenty years now. I’ve been in New York on and off for three years. I went back to my hometown in Richmond, Virginia, for just over a year, when my husband passed away. Then, I came back up here, because I like it here. I have lots of friends here, and I wanna try and get off the street, and there are better social systems to help with that here than in Virginia. 

I wanna go back to school, I wanna get off. First and foremost, I wanna get off the street. I wanna get a job. But it is hard to get a job being on the streets, because you carry all your stuff around, so you have to find somewhere to put it, and they won’t let you, you know, even in the back. And then there is this the whole, you know, being able to shower, and wash your clothes. But then you know, there are places around the city, all over the city that give you a chance to shower and wash your clothes and do that, but there are limited days that you can do that. But if you go the HRO, the Human Resources Office, you know they can put you in a shelter where it’s a lot easier to do those things. They have a lot more programs that you can get in to help you find jobs, they give you food stamps, taxes systems, like it’s a lot more that they do for you here, because of the homeless problem here.

From what I heard, they’re trying to cut back on the services they offer to, you know, homeless people, which I don’t find very… I don’t think it’s a good idea cuz you know, because even with the services they offer now, there are still a lot of people on the streets. I don’t know if it’s because they want to be, or if they just haven’t tried to go get help, or what it is, but to cut back on the funding or anything that they have for that, it’s just gonna make the situation worse than it already is.”