Justin, 32

Justin has been living on the streets of Manhattan since December of 2019 and heavily relies on the city of New York for support. Before the pandemic he would go to the public library and use their computers to print out job applications and submit his resume to various companies. The recent pandemic has made it a little more difficult for Justin to find a job since the public library is now closed and everything is done virtually. Justin doesn’t have a phone nor a laptop to help him on his current job search, so he is relying on businesses to print off the application for him. There is a local school that serves grab-and-go meals Monday through Friday that he takes advantage of but as far as weekend meals go, Justin relies on the people of New York to help him buy some bread and peanut butter. I asked Justin how he deals with the cold weather and his response was surprising to me, saying “Once you’re outside, you kind of get used to it. I’ve been outside so much that I got used to the cold and it doesn’t faze me as much as people would expect it to”. Justin is outside trying to find work for a majority of the day, he only goes inside to use a business’ restroom just so he can warm up for a few minutes.

Justin told me that he occasionally stays at an overnight shelter but the shelter is usually packed with people and he doesn’t feel protected from COVID-19 at all, so he chooses to figure out his own shelter every night. He has even gone to several church events that provide warm meals, but Justin told me how some of the churches will lock the door behind you and force you to listen to the sermon before ever receiving or even seeing the food that they told him about. With this conflicted battle against religion and hunger, Justin just takes it day by day trying to figure out what his next move in life will be. He told me that he is not happy with his current situation and hates how people stereotype him because they only see a man sitting on the sidewalk. Justin expressed that “people don’t talk to me very often, it’s rare that I’ll have a conversation with someone”, and I could tell this conversation meant a lot to him because he started tearing up. I left him with some words of wisdom and if you see him around the city, I encourage you to at least say hi and give this warrior some uplifting words of encouragement.

Story by Dawson