Life at Castle Grayskull - Fans

It has been blazing hot at Bedford-Atlantic recently, just as it has been everywhere else. The intense heat has been especially pronounced in the dormitories, which are long, narrow rooms with windows only at one end. To exacerbate the heat situation, some of the windows are bolted shut and therefore cannot be opened. As there is (thankfully, as far as I am concerned) no air conditioning in the dormitories, one might reasonably expect there to at least be fans to provide some sort of relief from the heat. There are, however, no fans in the dormitory areas besides those that some enterprising residents have managed to acquire and put into use.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Protest March

Besides the fact that Bedford-Atlantic is not particularly well run, the shelter is a long way (about nine miles) from midtown Manhattan. A homeless person is not likely to be able to afford a limo or a taxi to the shelter. In fact, he may not even have money for carfare. Instead, he must walk the entire distance while carrying what may amount to all of his possessions with him. This is no mean feat. My suitcase of belongings (before the suitcase got stolen from under my bed) weighed around fifty pounds. If I were to have to move today, I would have to carry those fifty pounds of possessions in plastic bags with no handles or wheels to help me along. If the weather were as hot as it is today, or if it were pouring down rain or freezing cold and snowy, the idea of covering such a distance becomes even more daunting. In such a case, a homeless person facing such a trek might have to decide between sleeping rough on the street or abandoning some or all of his belongings in order to be able to seeks shelter.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Hot Sinks

After several days of tepid showers, I was unable to stand beneath the water in the showers this morning. The steaming hot water burnt to the touch, so I was forced to first hold a wash cloth under the water, wait for it to cool down and then finally apply it to my body. My search for the "goldilocks shower" continues. After I finished my shower, I proceeded to the sink area to brush my teeth. Today, once again, I experienced one of the oddest things about life at Bedford-Atlantic. For whatever reason, very often both of the taps on every sink produce hot water. I am not talking about warm tap water, but hot water just as scalding as that which I found in the shower. The only way, it seems, to get any cool water is to be the first person to use a particular sink in the morning and to get whatever cool water is still in the pipes.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Eternal "Assessment"

Bedford-Atlantic is what is called an "assessment" shelter. What that means is that people entering the shelter system are sent to the shelter so that their needs can be assessed. Once the assessment process is complete, they are supposed to be transferred to "permanent" shelters that are supposed to be equipped to address any special needs that the client might have. For example, there are shelters that house people who have jobs and other shelters for folks who have substance abuse problems or mental health issues. The assessment process is quite simple. The client is required to have a TB test, can opt to have an HIV test, must have a cursory physical examination (vital statistics, urinalysis and a blood draw), and must have a cursory psychiatric evaluation (ten minutes answering questions posed by a psychiatrist who takes clients at their word).

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Drug Free Zone? (Part 3)

It is very common at Bedford-Atlantic for men to walk around from dormitory to dormitory trying to sell a variety of goods to the other residents. Normally, the range of merchandise on offer ranges from cigarettes to clothes and shoes. Occasionally, somebody also has DVDs (almost exclusively of the XXX variety) or cheap consumer electronics for sale. With the exception of the cigarettes, these goods are usually offered at a steep discount to the market value, making one wonder where or how the seller obtained the merchandise.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - An Unpleasant Nocturnal Interruption (Part 2)

It was hot last night. Unlike many people, hot weather does not bother me. In fact, I quite enjoy it. I find sleeping on a hot, humid night to be quite enjoyable. Therefore, when I went to bed last night, I was looking forward to several hours of fitful slumber, even as others were griping about the oppressive heat and the lack of fans in the dormitories (there is actually one small wall fan in my dormitory, but it was not turned on and nobody could find a switch for it). Unfortunately, however, my peaceful slumber was cut rudely short by what can only be described by shocking behavior by the man occupying the bed across from mine.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Appropriate Attire

When I woke up this morning, my t-shirt was damp from last night's heat, so I decided to take it off. I took out a fresh t-shirt but decided not to put it on until after I had a shower as my body was sweaty. I gathered my shower things together and headed downstairs. As I entered the main floor to go to the back of the building where the showers are, I received my first shout of the day: "Sir," a policewoman bellowed in such a manner as to make the honorific sound like a curse. "You're gonna have to go back upstairs and put a shirt on. You can't go around like that!"

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Life at Castle Grayskull - My New Case Worker

Now that the powers that be at Bedford Atlantic have shipped out half of the shelter's residents to parts unknown and closed down two floors of the shelter, apparently to prepare for their "intake" role, there have been some changes. One of the most significant, for those of us seeking services, is that they have changed the assignment of case workers. Previously, case workers were assigned based upon one's bed number. Now, the assignment is based upon the first letter of one's surname. Mind you, the shelter staff did not bother to actually tell anybody about this change. They simply posted the new regime in various places around the shelter. For those of us in the shelter who are motivated (a small minority) and literate (it would be interesting to find out how many of the residents here are literate), this is not too much of a problem. For others, however, this could present difficulties. In fact, I have already seen one unfortunate resident being upbraided by his former caseworker: "I'm not your case worker anymore. Look at the list! It goes by last name now. Go look at the list!"

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Prettying up Bedford-Atlantic

On Saturday evening, I knew something was up. The floors inside the shelter were shiny and clean! In fact, the cleaners had been so thorough that they had moved the lockers in the dormitories away from the walls and had cleaned behind them! This was just the second time in three months that I had witnessed such a thorough cleaning of the unfortunate place that I currently call home.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Yet Another Stigma?

The evening after the rally, I was walking in one dormitory and overheard a couple of residents talking about the rally. One of them said: "Sure, there's prob'ly some sex offenders in here. But that don't mean we's all sex offenders. Now folks gonna think any nigga comin' outta here might be one." This is not particularly elegantly put, but it is highly relevant. Those of us shelter residents that are trying to put our lives straight already know what it is like to be bunched together with the uncouth and unwashed folks who until recently loitered outside the shelter and gave all of us a bad name. We know what it is like to be discriminated against and looked down on just because we are down on our luck. Please do not make things worse by buying into the paranoia and fear and assuming that anybody that emerges from Bedford-Atlantic is a sexual predator on the prowl.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Folding the Mattress

I can still remember my first night at Bedford-Atlantic. After an entire day of waiting, I finally discovered around 10:30 pm that I was being assigned a bed. I was one of the lucky ones. Those who arrived too late to get a top spot on the waiting list were herded out to buses to be transported to Bellevue for the night. After getting my bed assignment, I then proceeded to housekeeping to get linen. Then I proceeded to my assigned dormitory. I was quite exhausted, so after making my bed, I got into it and quickly fell asleep.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Police Raids

Police raids occasionally occur at Bedford-Atlantic. This is not in the slightest bit surprising, considering that there are a high number of drug users and dealers on the premises as well as a high number of parolees who are required to stay in the shelter by their parole officers. For the police, picking up somebody in the shelter is about as challenging as stealing candy from a baby. This is because anybody who is in the New York shelter system has provided digital fingerprints and mug shots as well as their vital statistics. All the police have to do is show up at the shelter with the information sheets of those they wish to apprehend and the shelter staff give them the bed number the person is assigned to.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Drug Free Zone? (Part 2)

The guy sitting on his bed does not look like the stereotypical druggie. Then again, they never do. What, after all, is a "stereotypical druggie"? He is a pot-bellied white male with a goatee. As he does whatever it is that he is doing, he is visited by two of his mates. One is a diminutive, stick figure of a man. The other is Bedford-Atlantic's answer to Dolph Lundgren. At around 6 feet 4, he is an imposing character. His cheeks are sunken, his jaw prominent and sharp. His eyes are dark and piercing. Typical attire for him includes baggy jeans, a pullover sweater with a weight-lifting belt worn over it, a du-rag and a baseball cap placed over it at a bizarre angle (two-thirds to the rear seems a popular angle). This is not somebody any sane person wants to mess around with.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Getting One's Mail

Thankfully, I do not get too much mail sent to me at Bedford-Atlantic, because the mailroom clerk is one of the most unpleasant people in the shelter. So far, I have had to go through the mail procedure only three times. In two of those cases, I was shouted at and treated rudely, despite trying my hardest to follow the correct procedure.

The mailroom clerk is an older woman who seems to be holding on just long enough to qualify for her pension and head off to a cantankerous retirement. When she does, good riddance. There is already enough ill will in the shelter without her.

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