Logan Fisher: My experience with a loved one who was homeless in Glens Falls

To the Editor:

I cried today, Glens Falls Chronicle, reading this article. [10/31/24: “GF acts on City Park ‘day spenders’; Mayor: Public complaints, arrests, but aim to help them too”]

Then I pulled myself together and thought that maybe — just maybe — a woman like me — a native of Glens Falls, a lifelong citizen of Warren County, a working and contributing adult to our community — could share her story and impart some actual facts about one of these park-dwelling humans that she happens to know and love. So this is what I’ve done here in this post. It’s long. But I urge you to read and share. Perhaps my story will make it so you understand better the plight of the demoralized that are so callously spoken about in this article.

In it the mayor says, “It’s not that they’re homeless. Many of them have a place to sleep, and they know what all the services are that are available, but they are failing, for lack of a better word, they are failing at life.”

Let me educate you all on those “services” he talks about.

Last spring — Code Blue shut for the season. So one of the humans using their services needed a place to stay. He is mentally ill, unable to work, has a traumatic brain injury and is an addict.

Step one: We took him to DSS — he was told he was sanctioned because THREE YEARS ago he missed an appointment. They would not give him a place to live. They had them — to be clear. But they would not help him.

Step Two: We called ALL the agencies around and asked for help from each one of them. They all answered the same way — he needs Medicaid in order to receive services.

Step Three: We went to SAIL to work with their Medicaid expert to get him Medicaid. She put us on a call with a Medicaid agent who tells us she can’t approve Medicaid until:

There is proof that my loved on is no longer in prison. (He is sitting with us in the office..)

He proves he lives in NY. (He is homeless with no address…)

He has some form of ID. (Again, homeless…)

Step 4: We write to the Department of Corrections to get proof of no longer in prison. THEY NEVER ANSWERED

• Arrange to change his mailing address to our home address.

• Go to DMV to get him a State ID.

Step 5: At the DMV — with his birth certificate and an envelope with his address showing ours, HE IS TURNED DOWN for an ID because he doesn’t have a SS card or an income tax form. (Again, he is unable to work…)

Step 6: We went to the SS office to get him a Social Security card. We are told we’ll have to wait FOUR-SIX WEEKS to receive it in the mail.

Meanwhile, after 8 weeks of paying for a hotel room for him — we could not afford to continue. Each week we paid we hoped that it would be the last week. That Medicaid would come through. That he’d be able to get help.

He became homeless; had to be homeless. There were no options. We were still waiting for Medicaid. Not for a lack of trying. He was officially homeless, spending the cold April nights begging for places to stay, or, on that article-mentioned park bench all night.

Step 6: Twelve weeks after Code Blue closed and because of the goodness of a SAIL representative who worked tirelessly, our loved one finally got Medicaid. I rushed to call those agencies back to ask for help in housing and care. He had Medicaid — what can they do?

The answer — NOTHING.

Section 8 housing list has a waiting list a mile long and is only funded once per year. And that was back 8 weeks before.

Final step: Our fearless SAIL employee suggested for us to try for SSI Disability but that it would take months for it to be approved.

Upon that news — we lost him. To drugs. To anger. To hopelessness. The road blocks, the red tape, the humiliation, it was just too much.

I ask you, did I fail at life? Is it he who is failing? Or is it our system? The bureaucracy? The lack of infrastructure? The lack of common sense?

If I, with a high IQ and a fully functioning brain who works for a THINK TANK no less can’t navigate the system — how can anyone expect these at-risk marginalized HUMAN BEINGS to navigate it.

It is so important that we don’t speak in generalizations if we don’t really know the facts for each and every human life

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