Looking for a Place to Call Home in Mineola

The plight of the homeless has always been a social problem. In the best of times, even back in the halcyon days where everyone seemed more prosperous and the economy was on more solid footing, insolvency could still be seen. Now it seems more than ever, with more people losing their homes to foreclosures and lagging job growth, homelessness is a reality that many are now facing. For those who are either facing that reality now or who have been for years, Mineola has become a beacon.

One need only look around the village to see the destitute, pushing shopping carts, digging through garbage and refuse to collect a few recyclables. Testaments to the presence of the homeless are visible everywhere, one need only look hard enough. Shanty towns and tent villages were once erected in the wooded area by the entrance to the Northern State Parkway on Jericho Turnpike. Today stacks of milk crates stuffed with old newspapers and bedding are flanked by shopping carts, built as vagabond monuments sitting idly by the . Broken bottles of cheap alcohol strewn about on the ground liter every back alley in Mineola.

"Tommy" has been on the streets for the last 20 years. I saw him a few times, camped out in front of the now vacant Salvation Army building on Willis Avenue. On a night when the temperature was dropping into the teens, he sat on a carton with his back against the building's main entrance, facing the street and covered in old blankets. Tommy is 50 years old with a graying push-broom mustache and gruff voice, forged by years of hard living. He used to work in Mineola when he was younger, back when there was a trucking company behind the cab stands by the railroad station. Before that, he was in the United States Army as an "11 x-ray" which is the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) for those serving in the infantry. Now he earns a few dollars a day throwing out trash for a few local businesses.

He says he's been sober for years. Even so, he suffers from cirrhosis and severe swelling of his limbs. This past year he has had to go to the emergency room at multiple times for complications stemming from his poor health.

I asked Tommy if the police ever ask him to move elsewhere. He answered that groups of other homeless people will sometimes come and congregate in front of the Salvation Army and when that happens the police may show up. "If you're drinking, blasting the radio, if they get a complaint, yes they'll come and ask us to leave," he said. He leaves the area during the day, usually around 7 a.m. and comes back at night to avoid being asked to vacate the premises. For the most part it is just a routine that he has come to accept.

When I asked him about his family, he told me he had a son and a daughter, but both are married and live out of the state. He says that they know he's been homeless for years. "Yeah. They know about my situation," Tommy said. "I guess that's why they stay away. Can't say I blame them."

In his early 40s and homeless for 11 years, "Wilfredo" panhandles at the , asking commuters coming to and from New York City if they can spare any change to get some food. Whether he receives a few dollars in spare change, or more likely the usual feigned ignorance of his presence, he tells everyone "God bless." He wears a bomber jacket and a beanie and speaks casually to some of the MTA workers who know him and cab drivers who hang out there, waiting to pick up fares.

In another life, Wil was a chef who worked in restaurants on Columbus Circle in Manhattan. He says he has personally served up his signature dishes for major celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Chris Rock, and the late Anthony Quinn, just to name a few. Asking him about that, I could see his mind start to drift off, perhaps thinking of his past. "I miss that, you know? Cooking for people, seeing the look on their faces when they enjoy something I made," lamented Wil.

Originally from Long Beach, he says he comes to Mineola because he feels safer here, for a few reasons. The Mineola station offers a lot of security, with the MTA and Third Precinct police patrolling both sides of the rail, plus the cab stand being right there offers multiple sets of eyes. He tells me that most importantly he has people in the village who give him assistance. "A lot of people here in Mineola, help me out, they make me feel comfortable, like the majority of the times, anything I need, they'll come to my rescue," he said. They provide him with food and some clothes. Occasionally he may even get some shelter. It keeps him from getting robbed and beaten, which have happened to him in the past.

Tommy shared the same sentiments about Mineola. He feels that Mineola offers a safer environment for him, especially now that he is middle-aged and can't fight back like he used to. He knows that once in a while, he might have to go to a soup kitchen or a shelter if the weather gets bad enough. Going to these places present their own problems he explains as most of the closest programs are in Hempstead and the only way to get there is by bus. There is also the inherent risk of having your personal items stolen or worse, being assaulted.

A source familiar with the plight of the homeless in the area told me that there are outreach programs that come to the train station once in a rare while to distribute food and try to get the men and women who are living on the street to shelters. More often than not their overtures of help are rejected because while all those who are homeless are in their situation because of circumstance, many choose to remain homeless and off the grid by choice. Their reasons vary: the feeling of humiliation of being homeless to being under the thumb of a crippling addiction.

Obviously, there are no easy answers to solving the homeless issue.  According to the National Coalition for the Homeless there is no way to get an accurate account of how many people are "homeless" because census takers cannot define when a person qualifies as such. A recent poll put the number of "homeless" – persons who are currently temporarily displaced, using transitional housing and/or emergency shelters – at about 1.6 million people, or more than the entire population of Nassau County. Of those, approximately 90 percent are single adults, 4 percent are families, and 2 percent are unaccompanied minors.

As we approach the end of the holiday season, I'd like to hope that both Tommy and Wilfredo and all those who are homeless, receive good will and sympathy from those of us who are lucky enough not to have to be in their shoes. While many of these people have survived on the streets for years, just hearing about some of the things they have to face on a daily basis makes one thankful for what we have. While we get to come home to our families and make dinner on our stoves, all Wil and Tommy have now, are memories of their past.