Street People Slow to Take Helping Hand

Finding long-term care and permanent housing for the homeless mentally ill is a frustrating job. But social workers say that getting street people to simply accept a cup of coffee or a blanket on a cold night can be just as difficult.

Isolated and distrustful, many homeless people are reluctant to use public shelters or take showers at community centers, let alone talk to anyone offering these services. In some cases, it may take years before they agree to have even a basic medical examination.

“You need patience to reach these people,” said Diane Sonde, who runs Project Reachout in Manhattan, one of the nation’s oldest community programs serving the homeless mentally ill.

“Anybody who says you can just haul people off the streets, tell them where they’re going to live and expect their illness to disappear doesn’t know what it’s like out there.”

Making Daily Rounds

On a chilly morning last month, a team of three Project Reachout social workers began their daily rounds on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, looking for mentally ill people who appeared to be in need of food or other emergency care on the streets and in the subways.

The object was to give bag lunches and raincoats to street people, and then offer each person a free shower and medical check-up at the agency’s office in a nearby housing project. There would be no pressure involved: just a low-key offer of help.

It proved to be a frustrating day.

Minutes after their van pulled into traffic, Anne McGrath, the team leader, spotted a wild-eyed man dressed in a tattered cape standing near a phone booth. He was punching the phone buttons rapidly, banging the receiver on the wall and then punching buttons again.

McGrath slowly approached him, holding out a bag lunch, but he took one look at her and fled down a side street before she could even get a few words out. “No, no, no,” he yelled, as he disappeared.

Regular Ritual

Seconds later, the team spotted another homeless man on a bench wrapping a flimsy coat around himself. When Maureen Clavel got out and offered him a sandwich, he, too, ran away.

“We’ve been watching him for some time,” she said, climbing back into the van. “This is a ritual we go through all the time.”

The team had more luck when it climbed down a long flight of stairs and began prowling the darkened subways near Central Park that have become popular among hundreds of street people. In one corner sat Diane, a lice-infested woman who covered her face with a shawl and said she was waiting for her boyfriend to show up.

McGrath said the woman had been coughing up blood in recent days, and would recommend that a city ambulance bring her in for emergency care if the condition persisted. The woman, who mumbled only a few words and appeared to be crying, gratefully accepted the lunch. But she refused to go with the team for a medical exam.

Doesn’t Want a Man

Several feet away, the group encountered Ethel, who gestured wildly at a train that roared by, complaining that “all those people” had been stealing her government benefit checks.

“I’m alone, but there’s no point in getting a man,” she said, adjusting a bright blue hat and rubbing her hands to keep warm. “All you ever do is spend your time buying them booze.”

When the team offered her a bag lunch, she waved them off angrily. But she expressed interest in a possible medical exam and took a business card from Clavel.

By the end of the morning, the tally was 16 street contacts, and three lunches accepted.

“That’s not so bad actually,” said McGrath, as the van headed back uptown. “In this business, you can’t be in a hurry.”