Sonny’s got a bed!
Hey Everyone-
I realize, after a crazy couple of weeks, that I sort of left you hanging. My last post about Sonny from about four weeks ago was, I realize now, a cry for help. And so many of you stepped up. I want to just give a brief account of the past four weeks.
After I posted both to here and to social media that Sonny had become homeless, a number of people offered great ideas, both inside and outside the box. One idea, proposed by my cousin Crissy, was to contact his church if he had one. After talking to Sonny’s ex-wife, I found the church he’s been attending and contacted them. They responded by going to their community, and one member offered to let Sonny stay on a couch at his place for a couple of weeks for $200.
This gave us a bit of time to work, but not quite enough. During his two weeks there, we had a team working hard to find him more stable housing, but with the reduced capacity of housing and shelters due to the pandemic, almost everywhere we looked had no vacancies. After his two weeks on his church family’s couch, he was again homeless, sleeping in his ex-wife’s son’s pickup truck at night, riding his bike to the park during the day, and charging his phone at the gas station when he could.
I seemed to have run out of ideas, when Carolina from our Re/Creation writing group posted Sonny’s situation to Facebook, and our friend and ally Donna Hylton suggested we contact Exodus about the temporary facilities they’ve set up at three Wyndham hotels in Queens for early and emergency releases from Rikers and upstate. I’d already been in touch with Exodus about doing a workshop with their returnees, so I contacted one of their head social workers to ask if Sonny might qualify despite the fact that he’s now been out for months. To my surprise and delight, she responded immediately that they had a private room for him!
So, last Saturday morning, Sonny got a ride from one of his AA friends from West Hempstead to Queens and texted me after he’d checked in and been brought to his room. They are now working with him on permanent housing solutions, advocating for him with a contact list that is well beyond the reach of our little group.
What Sonny’s journey, as well as the journeys of my other reentering friends, is teaching me is that no victory is permanent, but neither is any failure. When one is sent into our carceral apparatus, especially for a long period of time, one comes severed from the system of social services and connections that most of us take for granted. While Sonny was homeless, my first thought was how easily he could be picked up and placed back in Nassau County Jail simply because a cop and/or administrator looked at him and thought, “Jail’s the best place for this guy.”
Jail is never the best place for someone. But we’ve systemically defunded the social services that are better for people with PTSD, the mentally ill, people whose income is insufficient, and everyone else whom a functional social safety net is supposed to serve.
When we talk about defunding the police, it’s important to remember that we’ve already defunded everything that makes them and the carceral apparatus less necessary. Every budget is at heart a statement of values, and moving money from our currently overfunded law enforcement to our currently underfunded safety net is a statement that we care about people more than we care about punishment. If you need a personal narrative to make this more real, just think of Sonny. Both he and his cat Bentley are dearly loved, but just think how much easier it is to find Bentley a place to stay than it is to find a place for Sonny.