a PTH member's letter, challenging stigma and marginalization

Re:  "Residents Outraged Over Shelter Plans," Chelsea Now, Vol. 4, #24, June 17-20, 2010

June 24, 2010

To the Editor,

I was amazed to learn the extent to which the propinquity of homeless substance abuse and emotional distress is terrorizing the wealthy pillars of Chelsea with fears of sexual predation and other undesirable criminality.  It seemed to me common knowledge that drug addiction and drug dealing, inter alia, were rife within the medical profession alone -- not to mention the bedrooms and other haunts of the sons and daughters of the wealthy.  It seemed to me common knowledge that disorders of the mind and nervous system knew no class distinction.  I thought surely every Chelsea sophisticate would know the extent to which the categories of so-called mental illness are forced upon the destitute so that the city may continue to profit at our expense and its governing powers further marginalize us or, indeed, use our bodies and souls as living laboratories.  Is any shelter being built for the vast numbers of homeless New Yorkers who are neither drug addicted nor alcoholic nor otherwise disabled?  I was startled to learn how galling to many Chelsea residents are the long lines of hungry homeless people, afflicted or not, outside Holy Apostles soup kitchen.  After living for nearly three years with that sleep-deprived population, my own impression has been that New York 's homeless are among the most passive of citizens.  Most seem scarcely able to keep their eyes open, let alone rape anyone.  Though constantly targeted by violence and police injustice -- including bogus arrests -- though victimized in many cases from childhood on by familial and educational deprivation and abuse, though beaten down daily in a thousand ways, big and small, by the warped presuppositions of a broken socio-economic system, most seem unable or unwilling to stand up for themselves or even to acknowledge that they have any rights at all.  Most seem marred more by saintliness than by sin, and it's been very frustrating trying to mobilize them, even for a city-wide march on the mayor's office.  I did not know that by our mere presence we could elicit so much wild anger and fear from such a powerful contingent.  Before attending the Chelsea forum the other night I was on the verge of despair.  Now I have hope again.

Sincerely,

Joan Harrison
Civil Rights Committee, Picture the Homeless