Catherine Street Homeless Shelter, Manhattan 1991-1992 by Joel Cosme, Jr.
From MemoryArchive
Who: Joel Cosme, Jr. What: Catherine Street Homeless Shelter When: 1991-1992 Where: Manhattan, New York
The Catherine Street Homeless Shelter: Manhattan, New York.
Located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan is the Catherine Street shelter. I lived there with my mom, step-dad and 9 year old sister for about a year. I was 10 and in the short time that I lived there, I learned a good deal about people, my family, and myself. We lived in a small room, divided in the middle by some lockers. The bathrooms were public and no privacy was given in most of them. I recall the showers had no curtains and the toilets on the floor we resided in had no walls around them, simply two toilets open for all to see. I tended to go to the top floor for privacy when doing anything that involved toilets. Meals were served to us: breakfast, lunch, dinner. At designated times we would join the crowd down to the cafeteria (the homeless shelter is a converted high school). The food was edible, though I tended not to eat much at first, soon I was forced to eat or deal with weakness. I recall my favorite breakfast meal was French toast. The school year was best. The shelter was located right next to my elementary school. The shelter would provide early breakfast to school children consisting of a small pack of cereal, milk and some juice. I used to eat this breakfast and then head over to the school for the school breakfast and then head back to the shelter for their secondary breakfast for the general residents. It was a time of plenty for me as I soon learned the value of food in my life and ate whenever the opportunity presented itself.
As for the shelter itself: It was situated between an elementary school, a YMCA activities center, and a temporary waiting area for those waiting to be placed in a homeless shelter. I would have to pass through a metal detector to enter the building. I was not allowed to bring outside food into the building, resulting in me having to sneak food in should I have gone out and bought something with whatever Food Stamps were left over. I remember my mother's favorite pastry was the 'honey bun.' I bought one one time (I think it cost 50 cents) and had decided to eat it while sitting on a bench in a playground area in the center of some apartment buildings. There were plenty of bees about, and they approached the 'honey bun' smelling its sugar. I had to walk while eating. I had been attacked by a swarm of angry bees when I was a little younger and learned to respect the creatures. It was an embarrassing ordeal to walk out of school with my classmates and have them see me walk towards and into the homeless shelter. I was ashamed to be poor, to have no place to live, to not have decent clothes that were not second hand. On every floor of the building were security guards standing watch 24/7. I only recall some instances of violence. Of random boys wishing to fight me because they thought or heard or were told that I said something offensive about their mothers. I became accustomed to hearing fights begin with the phrase: “What did you say about my mother?” I was small and weak and had no chance to defend myself. Honestly, I don’t recall much of my childhood and it pains me to force my memory to bring forth things hidden away.
The shelter is located near Chinatown. The residents were mostly Hispanic/Latino or African-American. There was an animosity towards the Chinese-Americans in the area. Even my mother would makes remarks I found to be offensive. I looked around at the people who lived there and, even though at the time I had no knowledge of nature vs. nurture, knew that nurture is what makes people who they are. I had my first crush and my first heart-break at Catherine Street. I had my life threatened by groups of thugs that for some reason wished to hurt a small, weak boy. I learned to love reading more and more as I read the pages of a family given immortality by water from a stream. I thought about the frog that will never die. I remember also the trips to the dentistry college. Parents had to sign over permission so that we could be taken to a dentist to have our teeth checked up. It was a school filled with doctors who developed their dentistry skills on homeless children. We were offered pizza as a reward for going on these outings. I stopped going after a bit. I felt the dentists were too rough. I felt pain. I did not enjoy it.
When I was 12, we moved out of the shelter and into an apartment. I visited Catherine Street once about three years ago. No change was visible. The fact that it is the same forced my mind to recall things I had thought long locked away. That was but one year of my life. And now as I sit at work, now a teacher in South Korea at a middle school; now a writer beginning to find his voice once again. Now a man wishing that he could reach to those children on Catherine Street. Now I wonder how can they reach out and grasp a life that is worthy of them?
