‘I just want to eat’ Hamden looks to solve rise in homelessness

John Kennedy spends much of his day next to a concrete divider in the Walmart parking lot on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden. He’s not there by choice, although passers-by may think that’s the case.

That, however, may change with a partnership that evolved among the Hamden Police Department, the Hamden Community Development Department and the Cornell Scott Hill Healthcare Homeless Healthcare team.

They want to give Kennedy and other homeless people a chance to get on their feet and into jobs that will change their lives for the better. 

The partnership came about five months after the COVID-19 pandemic slammed into Connecticut and forced Gov. Ned Lamont to lockdown businesses to prevent the spread of the virus. That, in turn, led to a collapse of the economy, forcing tens of thousands of residents to seek unemployment benefits.

People already on the edge of survival such as Kennedy didn’t qualify as they had no work before the pandemic hit.

Instead, Kennedy is homeless and left to beg for loose change and dollar bills for food because life dealt him a bad hand that he just couldn’t play well. He doesn’t drink, do drugs, or harm himself or others in any way. 
He, like many other homeless people, just can’t find a way out. The stereotype surrounding homelessness suggests that they made mistakes that put them in that unfortunate situation. While that may sometimes be true, there are a lot of homeless people who didn’t mess up and simply got the short end of the stick.

According to the Connecticut Department of Labor, Hamden is 15th-highest in the state in terms of unemployment, with just under 2,500 residents without work.

Kennedy and his girlfriend, Deidre Gonzalez, are two of them who have hit bottom. 

“We try our best to survive,” Gonzalez said. “It does get hard when John and I are here trying to make an honest living for food and survival and certain thieves who are on drugs take our things. There is a man in this plaza who I saw today that seems to be a former military person, and often talks to himself as if someone is there. We try to stay away from him because he’s yelled at us before and seems like another threat, and wouldn’t be the first person to take from us.”

Gonzalez said some people are homeless because of drug and alcohol abuse who seek money to feed their addiction. Her and Kennedy aren’t in that group, she said.

“We just save up money for normal things,” Gonzalez said. “The biggest thing I buy that is a guilty pleasure is cigarettes, but I haven’t done any drugs since being homeless and even was starting work prior to the COVID-19 shutdown.”

Kennedy is in a similar spot, so the two are working through the struggles together.

“I had no father and my mother died shortly after I graduated high school,” Kennedy said. 

“We always had problems financially, and after my mom was gone all I had was my grandmother. She needed help paying for her house, and I gave her everything I had. I had to take out a loan after that, which set me back and put me in debt, and after she died I haven’t been able to recover.”
Kennedy said people don’t realize how hard it is to get hired when homeless.

“People say to ‘get a job’ but don’t realize I have no ID and can’t just go get them with no money and no proof of identity, since I don’t even have a home address,” said Kennedy.

Some five months after the pandemic hit the state, Hamden police began noticing a sharp rise in homeless people begging for money on the city’s main commercial thoroughfare, Dixwell Avenue, and near the ramps to Route 15, also known as the Merritt Parkway.
Rumors spread that New Haven, a large city to the south of Hamden, forced its homeless population northward up Dixwell.

“I was able to go to the St. DePaul shelter,” Gonzalez said. “I only ended up being able to stay two weeks since I was only able to look for employment to get myself back into a home and work with a worker for housing, but they only allow someone to stay longer if they have something coming, like social security.”

Hamden police moved to help rather than harass the homeless such as Kennedy and Gonzalez. 

“Recently the town of Hamden and the Hamden Police Department have noticed an increase in homelessness and panhandling,” said Ronald Smith, a Hamden police captain, in a statement on Aug. 28. 
“A rising number of panhandlers have been observed in the vicinity of Hamden Plaza and Hamden Mart, and along the Dixwell Avenue corridor.”

Instead of arresting the homeless, police partnered with the Hamden Community Development Department and Cornell Scott Hill Health Center Homeless Healthcare team “in an attempt to address these issues,” Smith said in the statement. 

That’s why Hamden police officers now check in on the homeless and work to find them safe shelters and medical help if needed. 

“Obviously we deal with a lot of things on a daily basis, and homelessness is one of them,” said police officer Steve Teague.

“It is always good to go over and spread a positive word to them, since you never know what people are going through on a daily basis, especially in these times. We ask them if they want a meal, usually they say yes but sometimes they do not, which is totally fine too. A helping hand coming from somewhere they may not expect certainly means a lot.”

Hamden police couldn’t be doing much more in terms of helping the homeless, which may seem unusual. Hamden’s approach is complicated by COVID-19 and the spike of unemployment because of it. The difference in types of homeless people doesn’t make it any easier on the honest ones trying to survive, so Gonzalez and Kennedy recognize that may be a point of confusion for not only the police but residents. 

“I get why people see us the way they do,” Kennedy said. “It doesn’t help when other homeless people prove the citizens right, since there are the ones who make us look bad. I don’t blame them for pooling us together because one time I saw a man try to give someone a burger and the homeless guy threw it back at him. Oftentimes when I get money, they say don’t touch the car or throw it at me so I don’t get too close. I often think to myself, ‘I don’t want to bother you or touch your car, I just want to eat.’ But I get why, like I said.”

Kennedy and Gonzalez however, are grouped under the same perception as the homeless they criticize. Few cars stop at the Dixwell Avenue barrier where they ask for money. The two are not aggressive in their approach and let cars pass unbothered. 

Kennedy and Gonzalez store their sleeping bags, clothes and signs in the caged area around a dumpster where they also sleep. Their lives are completely compressed into this boxed area. They alternate going to the Walmart parking lot entrance with a sign asking for money. One begs while the other stands watch over their belongings. 

The two aren’t aggressive when asking for money, simply standing and holding the sign. Other homeless people are more aggressive and tend to work in packs, asking for money at the Route 15 intersections near the Welcome to Hamden sign. A lot of people are near the sign at all hours, but not in the plaza at night since the stores are closed. 

Kennedy and Gonzalez would prefer to sleep in shelters if possible but life there is harder than many think.

“The shelters have not been the place I would want to be,” Kennedy said. “They are wet shelters, so there are a lot of belligerent drunks in there giving folks a hard time that don’t deserve it. They are not very nice, but I have heard that there’s been improvements. Maybe if it is somewhere I would want to live and it would help more than hurt, I would consider.”

As winter approaches, they may have to move indoors.
The Hamden police, meanwhile, insist that their partnership will eventually help all homeless find homes during the winter, and in general. 

“Quality of Life issues are a top priority,” said Smith in the August statement. “During normal times, but especially in unprecedented times, helping the vulnerable is priority number one.”

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