Don Cardinali dug his fork into a heap of pasta that smothered his chicken, and swirled the noodles into the puddle of tomato sauce on his plate. His eyes were a glazed white. His mouth opened wide for each bite, emitting an odor that smelled like a tube of glue.
A few bites later, he pulled up a pile of pasta, clamped it with his knife and fork and shoved it so hard into his mouth that he snapped his dentures off his gums. “Holy fucking shit!” he yelled, drawing some looks from the others at the Cedar Lane Diner in Teaneck. He set down his utensils, refastened his teeth and resumed eating.
Then Cardinali, 53, pointed at the chicken filet on his plate.
“Want some?” he asked, his new, oversized but shiny white teeth jutting out from his wide grin.
For once, Cardinali, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was happy. Just a month earlier, in December 2004, he was eating most of his food with a spoon. He had to wait in meal lines that were a half-hour long at the Bergen County Jail, where he was locked up, again, on drug charges. Other inmates stole his food while mocking his shoulder-length, blonde hair, calling him “gay” or “fag.” After the watery oatmeal or the runny eggs was slopped onto his wooden tray, Cardinali would grab four honey buns, and stuff them in his armpit. Then he would sit at a table, alone, shove the rolls into his socks and save them for bedtime.
This was his seventh jail stint and, quite possibly, his worst. In one incident, Cardinali screamed at an inmate who routinely taunted him, compelling the corrections officers to restrain him and send him to lockdown for three days, where he was prevented from having contact with other prisoners.
He also was thrown out of a Bergen County program that provided guidance to prisoners with mental illness. The objective of “jail diversion” was to get the well-behaved prisoners with schizophrenia and other disorders a speedier release – if they showed promise that they wouldn’t again break the law – and provide guidance to them once they’re on their own, looking for a job. Cardinali initially agreed to play along, going to therapy sessions and agreeing to be interviewed for a potential early release. But his erratic behavior, coupled with his history of relapse, did him in.
Desperate, he called his family, friends and attorneys. The only one who answered was his mother, Agnes, but she wouldn’t talk for more than a few minutes. Then he’d ask for his sister, but she wouldn’t even come to the phone. Both his mother and sister had restraining orders against him.
“He’s a no-good drug addict. If he gets out, he can’t come home,” said his sister, Diane. “He soils the family name.”
Cardinali had no hope of getting out before July 2005, when his 1-year sentence would be finished. His next court date was Jan. 28, when he was supposed to face state Superior Court Judge Eugene Austin. Even if he had been a model prisoner, however, he did nothing to help himself get a job, transportation, housing or anything that could help secure an early release.
“I just haven’t been able to call anybody to help me out,” he said. “I had been waiting to use the phone at the jail, but there was a bunch of guys waiting to use it.”
On Jan. 28, at the court hearing, his attorney, Diane D’Alessandro, spoke for him. She told the judge he had a job, a shelter to go to and a ride to take him there. She said he would stay clear of drugs, stay out of trouble and stay clean. Cardinali admitted later he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I just nodded along,” he said. “I wasn’t going to argue with her.”
He was set free.
One the way out of jail, Cardinali hitched a ride to the Bergen County shelter. That night, he slept in the back of a delivery truck. For the next month, he would alternate between the shelters – as long as they had room – and the trucks parked in front of the Bergen County Community Action Program’s shelter on Orchard Street in Hackensack. He would wear the only clothes he had, or had access to. He got money for a meal from anybody he could, usually begging for a few bucks so he could eat at McDonald’s. And, as he did just before lunching at the Cedar Lane diner in February, Cardinali would spend much of his time roaming the streets, squeezing roofer’s glue into a plastic bag, covering his mouth and sucking in the fumes.
Even as his life of hardship continued, Cardinali sat at the Cedar Lane Diner in February 2005, and found reason to smile, even if his slippery dentures made smiling a struggle. Finally, he found something that worked for him.
He lied.
“I’m an addict. I’ve had a relapse here and there. But I’ve been working on recovery since 1981. I have a lot of support outside,” Cardinali said after his release.
Still Cardinali had a plan. He would beg for money from friends he hadn’t seen in a while. He would try to reconcile with his mother, he said, even with the restraining order against him. He wouldn’t have to rely on the drugs that the jail provided and did little to relieve the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Instead, he had his glue and, if he could ever find the money, he would buy heroin, too.
If anybody asked, Cardinali would tell him he’s fine. He was suspicious of the jail diversion program, anyway. He was afraid he’d be labeled as “mentally ill,” and even if he did get an early release, he’d have a hard getting a job. Now he could live his life, and pretend that all the things that brought him down – his temper, his rap sheet, his illness – don’t really exist.
Cardinali’s main mission was to prevent what happened on July 29, 2004. That day, Cardinali was sweating as he walked the sidewalk in Palisades Park. He was wearing a mesh hat, a sweatshirt and a thick pair of jeans, the only clothes he owned. He walked about two miles from B&B Upholstery, where he did occasional odd jobs, to Valley National Bank, just over the border in Ridgefield, because he wanted to see if his Social Security check had cleared.
But the heat was getting to him. So he reached into his left shirt pocket, pulled out a tube of roofer's glue and squirted a half-inch drop into a plastic bag. Then he put the bag over his mouth, and breathed in, deeply. He removed it, and looked straight ahead. The street was spinning. He stumbled a little, and nearly fell down, but he quickly straightened himself up.
Cardinali walked over to the bank, and headed straight to a teller. He was afraid that he was too high to talk, so he pulled a bank deposit slip and wrote the teller a note. The teller’s eyes nearly crossed as she struggled to decipher his writing. When she told him she couldn’t read it, he grabbed the paper and stormed out.
Outside, he stood in front of the bank window and, again, squirted glue in a bag, and then breathed in the fumes.
Another bank teller saw him, walked over to the alarm and pulled it. Minutes later, three police cars pulled up, and surrounded him. The officers got out of their cars, kneeled behind doors and drew their guns.
Cardinali dropped his bag. He stood on his toes, and raised the other leg high in the air. He later said he felt like the Karate Kid, the homeless version.
“I know Tai Chi!” he yelled.
Three officers ran up to him, cuffed him and pulled him to the car. Cardinali kept shaking his head. For the seventh time, Cardinali was going to jail. As hard as it was for him to stay away from incarceration, he never got used to it.
He was 5 foot 10 inches, yet he was so skinny that he seemed small. He had a temper, but he was also polite, and often apologized for things he said, or things he was about to say. But, in jail, he was often up against people much bigger, more vicious and had no capacity for mercy.
Cardinali’s “pod” at the Bergen County Jail was C-2, where the mentally ill were housed. There, the pod had tables with checker boards painted on, and stacks of bunk beds where the inmates slept. Many of prisoners sat at the tables, chatting and laughing like they were at a poker club. Or, they watched T.V., leaning back in their chairs and listening quietly.
Every Tuesday, counselors from Care Plus, a Wallington-based mental health treatment organization hired by the county to manage the jail diversion program, arrived to meet with groups of inmates diagnosed with mental illness. They held their sessions in a small room with storefront-sized windows, where metal folding chairs were lined in a circle. Inside the room, the cinder-block walls were pale and colorless. A television set sat there, unplugged. A bookcase was there, too. But the books were rarely red. The covers had barely a rip or fold or a fray, like they belonged on the shelves of B.Dalton, not the Bergen County Jail.
The county hired Care Plus to meet with inmates every Tuesday at 11 a.m., and each meeting was really group therapy. Counselors provided guidance to inmates and alternatives to spending their lives behind bars. Typically, 10 to 12 inmates sat in the small room, leaned on their knees and listened to each other bitch and moan about their lives.
Cardinali often walked in late, slumping in his chair, with his blonde hair leaning against the back of the chair, his legs folded and his left hand resting on his right forearm. Cardinali had to be prodded, and practically dragged in there to participate. Sometimes he was mocked and heckled because he would put up such a fuss about doing it. After several meetings, however, Cardinali started to get why the others were there: They didn’t care so much about getting better. They only saw this as a ticket out.
When he was young, Cardinali wanted to be an oceanographer. But he could never stay sober or sane long enough to get a college degree. He liked playing music better, anyway. He played drums in a band called “Omnibus.” He bumped into or played with just about everybody from the Grateful Dead, Pegasus and Quicksilver Messenger Service. When he was in Alcoholics Anonymous in Florida, Dion, the 50s rocker who sang “The Wanderer,” was his sponsor, he said. The guys who wrote “Dancing in the Moonlight,” the hit from the ’70s, penned it in his mother’s basement, he claimed.
Cardinali had a mother who was nurturing, and a father who was tough, but fair. They were basically stable, and happy, until his dad died in the mid-1980s. That was when his mother, depressed over the loss, told Cardinali that the man who died wasn’t his biological father. His real father was a jailbird, a heroin addict. He was also Jewish, which didn’t go over well with Cardinali’s Italian girlfriend at the time. After hearing the news, she broke up with him. “If you’re Italian, you marry Italian,” Cardinali remembered her saying.
Cardinali started doing heroin in the 1970s when a friend approached him and sold him a $15 bag. “I just found myself driving over to his house, in New Milford, where his family lived and I knocked on his door, like an asshole, and asked if I could get some,” Cardinali said. “And he was the one who put it in my arm the first time. I took it, and he put it right in my arm.”
For the next two decades, Cardinali was in-and-out of rehab centers in Florida, New Jersey, everywhere. Just like an addict, he promised people he’d get sober. He’d never do it again. But, he did. The more he did it, the more he ran into trouble – usually with the law. When the rehab stints failed, the jail terms started. Everywhere he went, he was intimidated, mocked and even beat up, forcing him into rages that sent him to solitary confinement.
At the Bergen County Jail, the troubles usually arose at mealtime. Another inmate would sit next to him, and slide his tray next to Cardinali’s. “You gonna eat that?” the other inmate would say. “Yes,” Cardinali would reply. The inmate would chuckle, stretch his big furry arm and grab his honey buns. “What the hell are you doing?” Cardinali would shoot back. The inmate would just laugh. He’d take a big bite out of one of them, put it back on Cardinali’s tray, and walk away.
Underneath his bed, just after lights out, Cardinali would pull himself toward the dim ray coming from the outside street lamp. He’d then reach into his sock, pull out a honey bun and munch. He’d eat while the others were sleeping. Even in the dark, where he could barely see his food, the honey bun from the sock was the best meal Cardinali got all day.
At night, Cardinali was usually more alert. During each day, the jail had Cardinali on 200 mg of Trazodone. It made him loopy, sleepy and downright numb. It was like heroin. But these drugs made him feel weak, and worthless. “I go down and crash,” he said. “I drag everybody down with me.”
In July, 2004, Cardinali started attending the jail diversion meetings. Even though he routinely showed up late – and would look half-bored as he slumped in his chair – Cardinali listened to Michael Lang, the counselor who led these meetings, and started to believe. In September, he allowed himself to be interviewed by the organization and be considered as a candidate for the program.
On Oct. 12, 2004, Cardinali was told, he’d be led into the courtroom where he’d face Judge Eugene Austin. He faced this judge before; in his prior appearances, Austin lectured Cardinali for his being a repeat offender. He gave him what seemed like the hardest, longest sentences he could give him, Cardinali said. But Care Plus assured him: This time would be different. Here, Cardinali was told, he would play by the rules, promise to continue with the therapy sessions and then, perhaps, he’d get out by Christmas.
But, on the day of the hearing, Cardinali met with his attorney, Diane D’Alessandro, who told him there was a snag. Both the judge and the assistant prosecutor told her: No rehabilitation, no deal, they said. Cardinali refused. He wanted out of everything; not just jail. He had been to rehabilitation 12 times. Each one felt like a prison sentence, he said.
The judge then delayed the hearing. “Every time,” Cardinali said at the time, “I have my expectations high, and they’re dashed.”
About a week later, Lang went to see Cardinali. It was about 1 p.m. Cardinali, up late because he was eating his honey buns in bed, had been taking a nap. He sat up in his bunk, groggy, and rubbed his eyes.
Lang told him that his records were reviewed again. The organization decided, after some painful consideration, that he was too much of a risk. He would not be a successful candidate, he was told, because of his history of relapse. He would not be allowed to go to therapy sessions.
Cardinali pleaded for a second chance. “I’m sorry,” Lang said. Then he got up, and walked away.
When the therapy sessions stopped, the inmates got worse. In December, the same inmate who stole his honey buns swiped a pen from another prisoner, walked over to Cardinali and started lunging at him. Cardinali got into his Tai Chi pose, the same one he used on the police back in July. A sheriff’s officer saw him raise his leg and ran over and wrestled Cardinali to the ground. They grabbed him under his arms, and brought him to the 8-by-10-foot lockdown room, where he stayed for three days.
While in there, Cardinali called his mother collect. It was a brief conversation. He was yelling so loudly, and he sounded so desperate, that she hung up. He tried to call back several times, but she wouldn’t accept the charges.
“She’s so depressed. It’s fucking a drag,” he said at the time. “She don’t sound good.”
The jail psychiatrist, meanwhile, increased his medication, making Cardinali feel loopy. So he got the psychiatrist to change his medication, switching to half a milligram of Prozac. It was a lot better than 300 milligrams of Trazodone. Cardinali thought Trazodone fried his brain worse than any street drug ever did.
By the time Jan. 28, 2005 came, Cardinali understood what he was going face: The whole court hearing would be a formality. The temper that flared up in December – the same one he kept in check when he first got to jail, back in July – would do him in.
Then, finally, a break: Days before the hearing, Cardinali’s attorney got the word: A back ailment forced Judge Austin to retire from the bench. He would instead get Lois Lipton, a former Family Court judge who talked in a quiet, but reassuring voice, sounding more like a counselor than a judge.
In the early morning, Cardinali got up, combed his hair, slipped on a pair of glasses, faced the sheriff’s officers and extended his arms. They cuffed his wrists, and chained his ankles. Then they boarded the van for the courthouse. He rode the elevator to the third floor, and sat in a small room with bars. His attorney, D’Alessandro walked in, carrying his case file. It was the first time he’d seen her in weeks.
“I’m going to see if I can get your released today,” she told him.
Cardinali nodded. Then a sheriff’s officer opened the gate, clutched Cardinali’s arm, and led him to the courtroom. He shuffled slowly, the cuffs on his legs impeding his movement.
Cardinali walked up to the table, and stood next to his attorney.
“Counselor, do you have anything?” the judge said.
“Yes, your honor,” D’Alessandro said. “Mr. Cardinli agrees to the terms of the plea … But, if I may, your honor – ”
“Yes?”
“My client has been in for six months now,” she said. “It appears to me that people with similar offenses typically spend six months – not 12 – in jail before they’re released.”
Cardinali stood silently as D’Alessandro talked, and told the judge he wanted to make something of his life. He’d been involved in Care Plus, she said, but said nothing about him being thrown out. He’s in Alcoholics Anonymous, she said, even though he hadn’t been to a meeting since before entering jail.
Most importantly, D’Alessandro said, he would have a place to live, though she didn’t say where. He would also have a ride, but she didn’t say who would provide it.
“The criminal history concerns me,” Lipton said. “There’re been a lot of disorderly persons offenses that seem to go on and on. …Regardless of that, I am going to impose a 184-day sentence, including time served.”
“Excuse me, your honor,” his attorney asked. “One-hundred-eighty-four days – that means he can be released today, your honor?”
“That’s correct,” the judge said, then turning back to Cardinali. “I believe you are trying to help yourself. But a condition of your treatment is to continue psychiatric treatment and AA meetings.”
“Yes, your honor,” Cardinali said.
His shoulders dropped. Started, his mouth was agape. He struggled with his emotions, not knowing how to feel. Then, impulsively, he managed a broad smile.
Three days later, Cardinali was tired, hungry and feeling a little needy. Already, he had had it with the shelter food, which was only slightly better than what he had at the jail, as well as sleeping in cold trucks and crowded shelters.
He called a friend, who took him to the Cedar Lane Diner in Teaneck, where he had his best meal since July. After that, Cardinali begged to go to Palisades Park. “Please, I’ll do anything,” he said. “Just this once. I’ll never ask again.”
A half hour later, they arrived there, pulling into a parking space next to Hana’s Music. A light dusting of snow started to fall as they got out of the car, and walked into the store. Once in, Cardinali brushed the snow off himself.
Cardinali then started walking anxiously around the store. He looked at one wall, and then another, and then another. Guitars hung from all of them. He saw a Les Paul hanging on the wall rack, behind a piano. He picked it up, pulled out a stool, set it on his knee and strummed.
“I can play anything I can hear,” he said. “What I mean is, I can hear the notes. Can’t read ’em.”
He launched into “Just for Love,” by “Quicksilver Messenger Service.” Cardinali liked Quicksilver. The band sang about love and heartache, but never in a way that made you sad, he said. He sang every word and strung every note like he was 20 again. His chapped fingers, peeling around his finger nails, didn’t betray him. The song moved along, and Cardinali, again, smiled, showing off his big, white dentures.
Just about love, like the wing of some high-flying bird, Of the songs I will sing to you, you can hear every word,
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Days and nights with the bored
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Homeless in America: Hope amid Hopelessness
Robin Reilly picked at her chef’s salad, frowning at the sight of the wilted lettuce, Every so often, she fiddled with it with her fork, only to gently place down her silverware and dismiss it with her hand. Lou sat across from her, taking big, mouth-sized bites out of roast beef that was piled two-inches thick between two slices of rye bread. Reilly managed a thin smile as she watched Lou eat and smudge a drop of mayonnaise on each corner of his lips.
Seeing Lou eat, or do anything that’s good for his body, always boosts Reilly’s morale. She has to coral him to go to the Heritage Diner in Hackensack, where she takes people who are homeless - or, like Lou, formerly homeless - and buy them a good meal. Unlike a lot of people who know Reilly, Lou rarely goes hungry. His belly is too full with cooking wine, but not what used to be his favorite drink, mouthwash. He drank Listerine because, like the wine, it was cheap, but it made his moods swing so much that he picked fights with people a the bus terminal, at homeless shelters and sometimes even with Reilly. He’d yell at her, curse at her, and once threw a punch at her, even though Reilly is doing everything to keep Lou alive. Drinking mouthwash earned him the nickname, “Listerine Lou.”
But on this February day, Lou felt emboldened. “Today’s been a very good day,” Reilly assured him. “We got some very good news.” The doctor said Lou’s PSA count was down from around 60 to 4. The prostate cancer that has already spread to his bones and lymph nodes appears to have finally slowed, thanks to hormone therapy. He’s 58, and recently got into subsidized housing after two decades on the streets. But he knows he doesn’t have much time left. The possibility of adding even a year to his life expectancy, after suffering for years as an unemployed alcoholic, is the best news he’s had in decades.
Reilly always has Lou’s back. Even when he becomes the Hackensack version of Mr. Hyde, Reilly provides a comfort zone for Lou when everybody else cuts and runs. She transports him to Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus for checkups. When Lou, who declined to give his last name, used to spend his nights sleeping in rental-trailers at the Budget Rental Car on River Street, Reilly always got him clothes and a blanket. Recently, she bought him a Yankees when cancer treatment took away clumps of his hair.
This is Reilly’s daily cause, the kinds of things she does for the hundreds of others she’s pulled out of gutters, bushes alongside the railroad tracks and, on occasion, picked them up from jail before transporting them to the nearest shelter. Seeing them achieve any kind of success – whether it’s someone finding housing, or someone who just survived a medical nightmare – turns Reilly, 66, into a bubbly school girl. She’ll talk fast and gleefully whenever, on the rare occasion, someone among the hundreds she’s helped has found a way to move off the streets and move away from the booze.
“I just took a man out of the street, and then I took him to the bank, I took out money from the ATM. Then I took him to a hotel,” Reilly said. “We’re all about doing God’s work through our actions.”
But as excited as she was for Lou, and the many others she’s helped, Reilly is finally tired. Not tired of her work. Saving people from cold weather that leaves them frostbitten never really gets old. She’s just tired of getting jerked around by the city, the police and even other homeless advocates who, she believes, don’t consider her work legitimate. She’s tired of people calling her “a homeless advocate without a home.” She knows its true, and she doesn’t blame people for saying it. She’s just he’s tired of fighting a system that refuses to bend.
Every homeless shelter or drop-in center she’s operated in Hackensack, N.J. over the past decade has been closed because of code violations, or because she's had run-ins with city officials, police, religious clergy and other homeless advocates. Every job she’s had dealing with homeless advocates she’s left in frustration because, from her point of view, they never do the job good enough. Sometimes, she thinks just like the people she pulls out of the alleys and gutters and tries to help. Don’t get your hopes too high, she says, because the disappointment will be worse.
The latest eviction came in December at the 300-year-old First Reformed Church in Hackensack, where she ran a three-day-a-week homeless outreach center. She thought that was it. This would be the end of yet another stint as an “advocate without a home.” She had a place for people who are usually too drunk, mentally ill or drugged up to get into the local county shelters. Many of them don’t last long in life, unless Reilly is there with her safety net of care.
Months back, she prayed to God, hoping there would be one more place that would give her chance. The church came calling, and Reilly saw this as a sign from God that this was her last, but best possible resort.
Then she threw a Christmas party for the homeless and, according to the church, didn’t follow the rules. She served food before the pre-dinner sermon was finished, and then protested loudly when the church made the group of about 100 hungry people and staff members stop eating and serving. The eviction came swiftly; the church, which was already under pressure from city officials who have wanted her out of Hackensack for decades, ordered her to leave in a week.
Now she wonders if God has another plan for her, whatever that is. Maybe God wants her in the streets, being with the homeless and away from the bureaucrats, the politicians and the others who, she believes, stand in her way. She’ll now pursue this mission with the same vigor she’s had before – even if that energy, combined with a strong will that often becomes stubbornness, is what always gets her into trouble.
“I get tired of fighting the system. I get tired of fighting everybody because it’s not going to get better,” she said while still fiddling with her lettuce. “But, what do you all day? Knit? What else am I going to do?”
Just weeks ago, she found a long-time member of her homeless family, John, partially “frozen” and literally “stuck” to a sidewalk, she said. His body temperature was around 76 degrees.
John, whose last name Reilly did not want to divulge, has been been in the street for decades. He's been on life support systems. He’s had episodes where he’s excreted nothing but blood. Every time, Robin’s been there to take him to the hospital, usually to the Hackensack University Medical Center. Each time, he’s emerged just days later, alive and as well as he could be, before returning to the streets, the booze and the heroin that eventually brings him back to the hospital.
But with a sub-zero wind chill turning Hackensack’s streets into lifeless alleys, Reilly thought, for the first time, that John's hard-scrabble life was finally over. She took his pulse, and couldn’t feel one. He could have been dead, but he was too cold, so it was impossible to tell. She called for an ambulance and got him to a hospital, as she always did.
Within a week, he was sitting up in his bed and talking. Now he’s out again, walking the streets and surviving as he always does, but staying within arms reach of Reilly.
“I don’t want to get a call anymore, saying, ‘We’ve got this frozen guy. Can you come out here?’” she said. “I don’t want any more calls like that.”
Reilly’s convinced that if she wasn’t out there scouting the neighborhoods, looking for people lying along railroad tracks, she wouldn’t have found him. One of the luxuries of working out of her car is that she can be a one-person search-and-rescue team. She knows where all the hiding spots are. Besides the homeless themselves, she’s also the first person people go to – including those who give her a hard time, like the police – when they want to get help for someone, or themselves.
In the months prior to moving to the church, Reilly was doing the same thing, riding around Hackensack, dishing out food and water and giving homeless people a chance to cool off from the heat by sitting in her air-conditioned car. She had been thrown out of her State Street outreach center in June because, according to city officials, she was breaking the law by feeding homeless people on site. They were also “closing their eyes” on her couch, police said – the same couch she’s dragged with her wherever she’s gone to set up her advocacy work.
To Reilly, this was perhaps the most traumatic closure she’s had to deal with. She had been at the State Street site in Hackensack for seven years, by far her longest stint. Usually, she lasts anywhere from three months to no more than a couple years at any given place.
For those three months after her State Street departure, she did what she's doing now, which is what she's always done between stints. One of her “lieutenants” – a sixtysomething man with a dark blue knit cap and a scraggly gray beard known only by the name of “Coach” – scouts the neighborhoods carrying a cell phone, looking for people who were wasting away. He’ll call her, and then she’ll drive 10 miles from her Oradell home, and find them. Then she usually drives somebody who was on their deathbed to the hospital, or calls and ambulance, to get medical assistance.
Since getting thrown out of State Street last year, most of them have lived; some of them haven’t. In the last year alone, four died before Reilly was able to get to them and give them assistance. In the meantime, Reilly has lost weight. “I’m sick – sick with worry,” she said last year, about 40 pounds lighter than she as three years ago. She's never lost this much weight before.
The First Reformed Church gave her fourth place in a decade, and granted the space that opened to the public on Oct. 23. It was the kind of place she had been kicked out of before – an old church that’s part of the city establishment, where some members have been attending for 90 years.
It’s also the kind of place that’s given Reilly a chance in the past, such a church-based homeless shelter called “Peter’s Place” that employed Reilly as a homeless advocate nearly a decade ago. Usually, at these types of places, Reilly’s self-described demands to put the homeless first run afoul with management, she said, and she finds herself out in the street again, pulling the homeless into her car.
Before State Street, she operated out of a 12-by-20-foot office at the nearby Salvation Army and provided assistance to more than 1,100 homeless and poor people. The place was only temporary, but she attracted the same of legion of followers who always come to cry on her shoulder or sleep on her couch. They're the same people who have stuck with her since she was an administrator at Peter’s Place. In just a few months at the Salvation Army, she referred hundreds of clients to hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and employers.
"I'm not working for anyone right now. I'm working for God," Reilly said in 2001 as she packed furniture, a sewing machine, and cans of food and prepared to move. Several homeless people watched, and they hugged her when she grew misty-eyed.
Before Peter’s Place, Reilly was an interior designer who decorated medical facilities. Back then, she dabbled in homeless causes, and she was so moved by the people she met that she gave up her lucrative career to become a full-time advocate.
When she worked at the Hackensack University Medical Center, she had an opportunity to see the problem, for the first time, up close.
She saw people with missing toes and thumbs hauled in on stretches, quivering after spending the night in below-freezing temperatures. She saw them arrive with no one standing by them as they were hauled off to the ambulances or wheeled in on wheelchairs.
It brought out her aggressive spirit that has helped her prevail for so many years. It brought out a side of her that is only witnessed by people who stand in her way – such as Bergen County Community Action Program, the county homeless agency that she calls “a toothless bureaucracy” and, in her view, doesn’t do enough to help.
Reilly doesn’t worry about her image, either, because she’s more than an advocate, she says. She’s a diplomat and an ambassador for a homeless population that numbers in the hundreds in Hackensack, largely because the city is the Bergen County seat and, therefore, offers county-sponsored welfare services. In public, she’s shown herself to be as sweet-as-pie, one who is not afraid to curry favor with the media and present herself as maybe the one person who actually makes an effort to take care of the homeless.
Mostly, though, Reilly is a self-described “rebel,” and that’s what she’s most proud of. Rebels, she believes, make the best advocates. They don’t worry about what could happen to them, she says, because that kind of worry only impedes progress. They get things done because they’re not afraid of pissing people off, she says, and she’s done a lot of that.
Some of the homeless and poor, as a result, consider Reilly their guardian angel. Unlike the local county homeless agency, the Bergen County Community Action Program, she takes people who are in every condition – drug addicted, alcoholic or on the brink of death.
Many of them, like Lou, had decent paying jobs at respectable companies. Lou worked for Bell Telephone when drinking and the early 1990s recession threw him out in the streets. For nearly two decades, he’s been licking his wounds over this. Reilly was his only safety net. “This was supposed to be a permanent job,” said Lou, who worked at Bell as a technician. “I thought I’d be there forever. I thought I’d be getting the 40-year pin by now.”
Hackensack city officials, the First Reformed Church and representatives of Bergen County CAP declined to respond to this article. But they’ve spoken publicly before, saying they consider Reilly an “enabler” who allows the homeless to continue their self-destructive ways without giving them a healthy alternative. They also blame her for breaking rules too often – as the First Reformed Church claimed when they threw out in December after just two months.
While she has plenty of detractors, she has hundreds of supporters. Many of them are homeless, obviously, who have followed her around for years, and they know that wherever she is, their chances of getting food, guidance and a sense of morality have improved.
Some of the people she’s cared for have died, but many more have lived. At the First Reformed Church, she hoped to save hundreds more – at least that many – as long as she could stay on her feet, maintain good health and keep doing what she’s famous for in the Bergen County, N.J. area.
“’You’re going to put us on the map,’ they told me," Reilly said. "‘You’re going to put us on the map. They were not ready for the city. They said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I said, ‘Maybe you should worry.’"
At the October event, Reilly faced about 75 other homeless advocates and people without a home – many of them mentally ill or substance abusers, but nearly all of whom were refused care at the county homeless shelters. The event was peaceful; but it also attracted publicity in the local media.
Just days later, city code officials warned the church that Reilly was breaking the law, she said. Reilly claims the city’s call for upgrades seemed impossible to satisfy and seemed to have nothing to do with homeless outreach – such as installing a new sprinkler system.
Reilly began to worry again. The church, however, told her not to. “They said, ‘We’ve been in this community forever. We know how to handle them,’” she said.
But over the next two months, Reilly heard nothing about the city’s gripes, which made her worry even more. She asked the church again, and got the same response. Not to worry.
The end came on Dec. 21, when Reilly treated the homeless and the poor to a Sunday Christmas dinner. Reilly got upset when the guests had to sit through a 20-minute sermon before being served Christmas dinner. The Rev. Timothy Ippolito, pastor at Faith Reformed Church in Lodi, was quoted in The Record of Bergen County, N.J. as saying that the worship service was “first and foremost for the community of Hackensack" and feeding for the "economically disadvantaged" would begin after the sermon. At one point during the service, the newspaper said, the food servers were told to "drop" their utensils. Reilly said Ippolito threatened to call police if she interfered with the sermon, an accusation Ippolito later acknowledged, according to the article.
Reilly "sabotaged the agenda," said Ippolito, adding that he gave Reilly an "itinerary" for the night before the gathering and described Reilly as "another example of someone who likes to buck the system," he was quoted as saying in The Record.
Tempers flared between a church member and one of Reilly’s lieutenants. Reilly interceded, and said the sermon was interfering with what God intended. “You’re of here, Robin,” the man said, according to Reilly and others who were within earshot. A week later, Reilly was packed up and gone.
Outside of her car, her favorite place now is the Heritage Diner, where she’s treated countless homeless over the years to lunch and dinner. There, she gets a chance to talk to them without worrying about whether she’s violating a city code, or if she has enough time to pack her belongings and move to another place. Over wilted lettuce, she gets personal one-on-one time that’s almost impossible to get when she’s running a busy shelter or outreach center, and catering to the needs of hundreds of people who are tired, cold, hungry and wet.
She still hopes that she someday, finally, will find a place that won’t kick her out. She dreams of just the perfect place, with the perfect city administration, police department and local support to make it work.
For now, however, chatting about PSA counts over wilted lettuce will suffice.
“Nobody ever knows how to get rid of me,” she said.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Mental health in the media
I've heard a few people recently say that the only profession that's doing well in this recession is journalism.
Forgive me for nearly laughing but, whenever there's a recession, history has shown that the media are among the first casualties.
What's hurting it now is that the profession, ironically, has not adjusted well to the new media age. Advertising revenues have fallen dramatically, and classifieds have virtually disappeared from news pages. Thank you very little, Craig's List.
But other factors have come in to play. Take the case of Peter Sigal, an editor at The New York Times, whom I interviewed recently for my graduate work at Columbia University. Here's his story:
Peter Sigal took a break on a couch at The New York Times, his face flush and his greased, and his curly hair pulled up and out.
That’s what happens when you run your fingers through your hair so many times, he says, worrying about subject-verb agreement or whether Sarah Palin’s name is spelled right. He’s surprised that, at age 40, he hasn’t pulled all of his hair out.
But Sigal still gets a charge out of being a copy editor despite his hectic lifestyle, increasing workload and financial pressures he faces as the news business shrinks – and what’s left of it moves to the Internet.
“It’s still a challenge,” said Sigal, a father of two who is deputy slot editor on the Times’s national desk. “You still get an adrenaline rush at deadline. You’re working at a paper where you’re making a difference.”
He enjoys serving as what he calls “one of the last eyes” on stories printed in one of the world’s most respected newspapers – even if the unpredictability and the instability of the news business, as well as the infighting and occasional crisis that affects the Times can, at times, prove to be embarrassing.
One such case involved the Times’ failure to properly supervise a young journalist named Jayson Blair, who plagiarized and fudged facts and information and stories over a five year period. Most found the saga demoralizing; he views the exerperience as educational that led to greater oversight and strengthened the newspaper’s overall quality.
“That was a failure on so many different levels,” said Sigal, who occasionally edited Blair’s copy after he was hired by the Times in 2003. “The guy wasn’t submitting receipts from the days he wasn’t supposed to be traveling.”
Sigal stays positive even as he earns what considers “low pay” for a five-day-a-week, 4 p.m.-to-12 a.m. job while fathering two young children with his wife – an Associated Press journalist who works a 6:30 a.m.-to-3:30 p.m. shift – and doing daily babysitting hand-offs with her.
“My wife and I are doing it the hard way,” he said.
He helps run a desk with that has a daily complement of anywhere from 10 to 18 editors at a time, reviewing everything from the broad – such as story placement and headlines – to the minute detail – such as spelling, style and factual mistakes.
Their mission is to check for libel or anything else that slips by the backfield editors, who serve as the first eyes on stories, edit for content and “make sure the story they got is the story they wanted, and that it makes sense,” he said.
Once the backfield editors’ work is complete, Sigal’s copy desk can pay closer attention to the smaller details of stories and “look at the stories as a page and say, ‘This headline is wrong,’” he said. “They can keep a closer look on errors.”
“The editors edit the stories, then send them to me [or the slot editor] with headlines on them and I check to make sure they fit with the story,” he said. “I’ll rewrite them if they don’t fit.”
Times are changing, however. The New York Times recently had a round of buyouts, and his copy desk has lost some copy editors along the way – though he’s not sure how many.
Each editor has assumed more responsibility, forcing them to work harder to ensure accuracy. The size of the paper is shrinking, too, as a way to save money. As a result, Sigal said, they edit smaller stories, but there are many more of them.
On one September day, his desk had to edit 25 stories in an hour “and a lot of them were 400 or 500 words. In the past we had fewer slugs and longer stories – we had 1,000 1,500 word stories,” he said.
“We have to do more and more with less,” Sigal said. “We don’t have the luxury of middling for four of five hours on a 1,000-word story.”
He spends much of his day sitting in a field of desks that resembles an orchestra – he calls it “the rim” – that encircles him as he assigns stories to editors. But the action is fast and the tension can be thick.
In his role as a deputy slot editor, Sigal has to keep an even closer eye on words and phrases, and he shoots for “economy” in the story phrasing so that the same point can be said with fewer words.
He has to match editors’ skills with certain stories – and in a 24-hour continuous cycle that has constant deadlines for an increasing number of stories, he has to decide quickly.
Some editors work better than others with a complicated investigative piece, he said. Others work better and faster on deadline. Either way, it’s his job to choose who does what, and not worry about who may be offended.
“I’m paid to be a critical thinker,” he said. “You can’t be afraid of hurting feelings.”
Many of these decisions have to be made thoughtfully but quickly – particularly when a breaking news story must move immediately to the web. Some copy editors have been arriving as much as four hours earlier to work – as early as 1 p.m. – to start making decisions on what stories get edited, and when
“A lot of what we do is being like a traffic cop,” he said.
The pace can get especially hectic when stories come in late.
For a newspaper like the Times that covers stories spanning several time zones, lateness is commonplace. Working directly with reporters to ensure that stories are accurate, clear and focus, he says, becomes even more critical.
“We are encouraged to call the reporters directly,” he said. “We’re encouraged to send them playbacks [reading the story to them] for stories we’ve edited, and the reporters expect it. In the slot, we basically demand it.”
“If a story comes back to me in the slot and the lead doesn’t support the story, then I’ll tell copy desk to redo it and we’ll go back at it,” he added.
Each decision, however, must be made as a team, he says.
Copy editors have to develop partnerships not just with each other, but also the reporters. While their names are not on the stories, he said, each article has the copy editor’s imprint.
If a lead to a story doesn’t work, copy editors shouldn’t be afraid to contact the reporter, suggest they rewrite it or, if they balk or fail to do it, the copy editors will rewrite it themselves.
“Copy editors are equal partners,” he said. “You have just as much right to correct or change a lead as anybody else.”
The hardest part of the partnership is developing trust – particularly as the evolving, 24-hour news cycle forces copy editors to work more with less, Sigal said. Getting inside a reporter’s head, he said, is impossible when the pace is moving fast, and the time for a deep analytical edit job is short.
The Jayson Blair controversy, for example, was an example of a “failure of supervision” and partnership that has become more common as the news industry gets smaller and “we’re being asked do more and more with less,” but the demand for immediacy is greater, he said.
In Blair’s case, he says, there was too much trust. Though he wasn’t promoted to the deputy slot position until 2005, Sigal takes partial responsibility for the failures.
“I remember talking to him one time – he filed two stories from Virginia Beach and another from Montgomery County, Md.,” Sigal said. “I called him and I said, ‘Jayson that’s pretty far. How did you file these two stories?’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, man. I finished that one in Virgina, I got in my car and jammed up.”
“In hindsight, he was probably in Brooklyn the whole time,” he said.
Sigal ultimately was forced to copy edit the 14,000-word “correction” the Times did for Blair’s articles – a task that took 17 hours for himself and another editor to complete.
Such work stretches him thin – and makes him wonder whether he’ll put up with the erratic pace of the job once his his children, who are 2 and 7 months old, are older.
But he and his wife have managed to still love the profession enough that they make sacrifces in order to survive in it – even though they rarely go on vacations together and can’t afford daycare.
“She was in Iraq last fall and she was six months pregnant,” Sigal said of his wife. “We have a little bit of a challenge.”
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Getting the public to pay attention to postpartum depression
Postpartum depression is getting a public airing.
ABC television network's "Private Practice" series is supporting postpartum depression awareness efforts by showing an episode on Feb. 12 with a storyline on the topic.
ABC also consulted with Postpartum Support International to create a public service announcement about postpartum depression, which will be available on the network's website immediately following the show. Contact information for Postpartum Support International can be found.
While the episode has not been seen prior to airing, postpartum depression advocates are hopeful that the material will "closely correspond to the clinical presentations women experience when going through postpartum depression."
"Storylines which responsibly present the ravages of these illnesses without the alienating sensationalism - which fuels stigma rather than hope - can greatly influence a nation's response to those suffering from these illnesses."
Susan Dowd Stone of Postpartum Support International thanked ABC for its willingness to not only approach this critical subject matter, but to offer viewers contact information to Postpartum Support International, the world's largest nonprofit devoted to the eradication of perinatal mood disorders.
"This ensures that those moved by the shows content will not be left wondering where they can go to find help for themselves or a loved one," Stone said.
"This year, as we seek to finally pass The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act,we are grateful for the educational outreach offered by such leading networks in our fight to eradicate the needless suffering of the over 800,000 women who will experience a perinatal mood disorder this year," she said.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Postpartum depression treatment gets a second chance
By SUSAN DOWD STONE
Featured Blogger
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has reintroduced postpartum depression legislation in Senate.
Today, I had the joy of participating in a conference call with the office of Senator Menendez and the other organizational sponsors of The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act where we received the heads up that U.S. Senator Robert Menendez was hoping to reintroduce the bill today. And as of this afternoon, that is exactly what he has done!! For hundreds of thousands of American mothers and families, this renews the hope that 2009 will indeed be the year when Congress acknowledges our nation's mothers by addressing the full spectrum of maternal experience and finally passing this legislation.
The statistics we have on the numbers of women suffering from perinatal mood disorders (which range from 12 to 22 percent in the research) easily exceed the incidence associated with a public health crisis. And remember, these statistics, do NOT include the suffering of women who miscarry, endure stillbirths, give up babies for adoption or terminate pregnancies, all of whom are also susceptible to these devastating disorders and whose circumstances are included in the furthering of research and support being sought.
It is not too soon to begin contacting the senators in your state to let them know you support this long overdue legislation!! And while you are at it, feel free to express your support to U.S. Senator Robert Menendez for whose steadfast determination we are so very grateful.Thank you to Senator Robert Menendez and the bill's other leading cosponsors, Senators Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Olympia Snowe, R-Me.
If your organization would like to become a sponsor of this crucial bill, please contact Emma Palmer in Senator Menendez's office at 202-224-4744.
Please visit again soon for the link to an online petition which will be available across the country.
The latest copy of the The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act, follows the official press release below!
COMBATING POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION: SEN. MENENDEZ BEGINS PUSH IN 111TH CONGRESS
MOTHERS Act reintroduced in Senate, was close to passage last year
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, D-N.J. on Jan. 26 officially kicked off his efforts to secure an increased federal commitment to combating postpartum depression by reintroducing the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act in the Senate. The legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. and Olympia Snowe, R-Me., has support from Senate leadership. It was nearing passage last year, despite being blocked from a vote on the Senate floor by Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who has objected to this and other bills targeting specific diseases on ideological grounds.
“We gained significant support for this effort to combat postpartum depression over the last two years, which makes me optimistic that we will be able to deliver this gift to new mothers,” said Senator Menendez. “Increasingly, my colleagues in the Senate are learning about the vicious, debilitating nature of postpartum depression and how it affects families, and they understand why this initiative is so important. We have to attack postpartum depression on all fronts – with education, support, and research – so that new moms can feel supported and safe rather than scared and alone.”
Postpartum depression is a serious and disabling condition affecting hundreds of thousands of new mothers each year. The new legislation would increase federal efforts to combat postpartum depression by:
* Encouraging Health and Human Services (HHS) to coordinate and continue research to expand the understanding of the causes of, and find treatments for, postpartum conditions.
* Encouraging a National Public Awareness Campaign, to be administered by HHS, to increase awareness and knowledge of postpartum depression and psychosis.
* Requiring the Secretary of HHS to conduct a study on the benefits of screening for postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.
* Creating a grant program to public or nonprofit private entities to deliver or enhance outpatient, inpatient and home-based health and support services, including case management and comprehensive treatment services for individuals with or at risk for postpartum conditions. Activities may also include providing education about postpartum conditions to new mothers and their families, including symptoms, methods of coping with the illness, and treatment resources, in order to promote earlier diagnosis and treatment.
It is estimated that postpartum depression (PPD) affects from 10 to 20 percent of new mothers. In the United States, there may be as many as 800,000 new cases of postpartum conditions each year. The cause of PPD isn’t known but changes in hormone levels, a difficult pregnancy or birth, and a family history of depression are considered possible factors.
The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act, sponsored by Senator Menendez and Representative Rush, will help provide support services to women suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis and will also help educate mothers and their families about these conditions. In addition, it will support research into the causes, diagnoses and treatments for postpartum depression and psychosis.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Being of sound mind means being free of illness
To me, having a mental health issue means something more than dealing with a diagnosable illness.
It's all about maintaining the right quality of life, protecting yourself from disease and not having to fear that death is at your door.
If we were to expand the definition of mental illness in such a way, then the continent of Africa is suffering yet another epidemic - only this one is of the mind.
It's mental disease brought on by the scourge of AIDS that, despite medical advancements, is still killing hundreds of thousands of people each year.
At the same time, it's turning hundreds of thousands of children into orphans, as well as many others motherless and fatherless every day because of the deadly disease.
In the wake of their dead loved ones, many are suffering from witnessing the spectacle of people who once led robust lives only to be destroyed by a disease that took their life away long before they were dead.
Perhaps no book captures that struggle more - as well as the hope offered by those fighting to save Africa from the disaster - than There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children by Melissa Fay Greene.
The story revolves around Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian woman who has welcomed people of all types - particularly youthful victims of AIDS, many of them orphaned - into her house to talk, eat and, usually, stay for a while until they seek stability, care and love.
In the opening scene, Haregewoin got a call about an abandoned child. She was inundated with children already. But the mother had AIDS and the dad, TB.
No, she said initially. But Haregewoin quickly changed her mind. Over and over again, Haregewoin's objections almost always disappear after some reflection. To Haregewoin, humanity always triumphs over convenience.
This is what happens in Ethiopia, where disease has forced a population that once lived in civility to lean on others - even if they're sick, too - for support. It was under colonial rule but broke free from the Italians in the 19th Century, largely because people felt proud about their country and their leadership.
She married a man named Worku and they had two children - not 20, like the family she came from. Haregewoin worked for a computer company and Worku was a high school principal, so they were educated, and they didn't want to go down the same path of living with a too-large family in a too-small house.
Haregewoin had a sudden back problem that she thought was cancer, so she went to Cairo to get it checked out. It turned out to be no big deal, but she liked Cairo and stayed - despite being far away from her family while it was falling apart.
Haregewoin started to worry when her daughter, in telephone conversations, complained about feeling tired. It turned out she was pregnant, but her complaints persisted. Hargewoin finally went to visit and found her somewhat emaciated, but she just thought it was because of the pregnancy.
Her daughter had the baby, and everybody celebrated. But the daughter became more of a recluse, and her husband put up a barrier between Haregewoin and her daughter that prevented Haregewoin from knowing too much.
Frustrated with the situation, Haregewoin eventually went to visit again, and found her daughter suffering from what appeared to be AIDS.
Haregewoin's son-in-law, Ashibr, took the baby away; Haregewoin cared for her daughter at a hospital and, later, at home, where she died in 1998.
Haregewoin was devastated. She went into seclusion, shunned people and thought about becoming a full-time mourner.
Only a religious group stood in her way, and asked her to take care of two teenage children. Haregewoin intially didn't think she could do it, but she did it - much to her friend's dismay - because she couldn't say no.
The children were rebellious - especially Abel, who was a drug addict. Those children were eventually taken away. But Haregewoin's willingness to take them in inspired religious groups to seek her help again. Other smaller children were dropped off, and the emptiness Haregewoin felt after losing her daughter quickly disappeared.
Virtually all the children had parents with AIDS or had died of AIDS. There were twins; there were even children with AIDS. One mother dropped off her baby, fell down and died just outside Haregewoin's door as she left. Even the police dropped off unnamed, abandoned children.
Haregewoin saw this as her calling - and even hung a picture in her house of her deceased daughter holding her newborn child with an inscription from a pop song: "There is no me without you."
The children, meanwhile, played in the yard and with each other, and then went to school and played soccer. One man dropped off his sick daughter just so she could socialize.
A group dropped off a young girl who hated being there, and wanted to prove it so badly that she repeatedly slammed Haregewoin's steel door, trying to get out. People on the other side of the door - the people who dropped her off - were crying. The author, who witnessed this scene, thought of offering the group money, but decided against it.
There were other troubles, too, that had nothing to do with disease.
An uncle Oscar who was involved in the life of a pair of twins came around, and Haregewoin blocked the door. Before this encounter, Oscar once pulled down the pants of one girl, and tried to rape her. He was caught, and he took off the hills. But he tried to re-enter their lives, and Haregewoin wouldn't allow it.
Overall, Haregewoin enjoyed the experience. But eventually, it took its toll. People in the area shunned Haregewoin and her children. They didn't want to come into contact with people who have had some association - even remotely - with AIDS.
Money was tight, and Haregewoin began taking donations. She told people she couldn't take any more children, but she did anyway, because she couldn't say no.
Children like Minty held out hope their parents were still alive. Minty, for instance, was hording rolls that he wanted to give to his father - even as they grew moldy and disgusting. He still wanted to give them to his dad, Eskender.
But Eskender, Haregewoin soon found out, died.
Haregewoin eventually grew weary. She saw her numbers grow from two dozen to three dozen children. She told people, "No more," but they came anyway.
Suddenly and hopefully, adoption groups approached Haregewoin. It was just the right time, because Haregewoin couldn't be the mother she was when she had fewer children.
She also needed a doctor - and she found one, an American who gave up his life for this cause. He examined a baby who was literally "dropped" at Haregewoin's house, and whom everybody thought had AIDS. The doctor discovered he actually had a milk allergy. He was given soy milk and became a normal, everyday child.
Adoption agencies eventually came out of nowhere, taking away babies left and right. Haregewoin grew attached to some of the children and didn't want to give them up. But she relented, realizing that others could provide a better life.
Haregewoin found a place for the older kids, too - the Americans, who had set up a local agency that found parents for the children.
A rich woman had a birthday party at Haregewoin's compound. She wanted her pampered child to see poverty. For a day, everybody - including Haregewoin - felt like they were in the middle of a fairy tale.
Haregewoin eventually developed something of a celebrity status in Ethiopia. She won an award that earned her a trip to the United States, the same country that provided shelter to companies who refused to allow generic anti-AIDSs drugs to be developed and cheaply sold and used in Africa, Greene noted
For Haregewoin, however, success didn't come without new struggles.
People started to resent her, and believed that she was getting rich off her good work. They started to snipe at her. An agency was upset with the way she handled the adoption of a girl who was presented by a 17-year-old mother. When the 17-year-old took the child back after much wrangling, the government investigated Haregewoin for child trafficking.
An investigation into a possible rape at Haregewoin's compound lingered for months as rumors began to spread about mistreatment and child-trafficking. Donations and adoptions stopped coming. The children were getting smaller meals.
Ultimately, Haregewoin was arrested and locked away, like she was a political prisoner. Her surviving daughter and friends tried to spring her loose, but Haregewoin viewed her time away as an opportunity. It gave her some moments to reflect, as though God led her here.
In early 2006, Haregowein was back home. The Ministry of Justice took over control of her orphanage, and also cleared Haregewoin of any wrongdoing.
She also reacquainted herself with her grandson, then 7. Ashibr relented after prodding from Haregewoin's surviving daughter. They developed a regular relationship, all while Haregewoin continued taking kids in.
But it was her time in jail that gave her the moment to realize her work was her gift to life.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Some men wallow in misery; others rise from depression and create change
As America prepares to swear-in its first African-American president, seminal figures whose names don't trigger instant recognition the same way as Barack Obama or Martin Luther King Jr. do - but are heroes to many, nonetheless - come to mind.
There was Richard Wright, who captured the struggle of racial oppression in the prison system nearly two decades before the civil rights movement with his 1940 novel, "Native Son." There was Don Haskins, the coach of Texas-Western who started an all-African-American team against the racially exclusive University of Kentucky basketball team in the 1966 NCAA championship, and won.
Others may say, "Dig deeper, and you'll find more." I'm reading books that capture the civil-rights spirit of people who I've struggled to find on Google search lists (why is that, anyway?). But some argue they've done more for their neighborhood, their community and even their country than many of the today's civil rights leaders who seem to consider appearances on television news programs and talk shows to be a greater priority than the cause.
Few men learned the art of coping, and successfully converting tragedy into hope than Orlando Gober, a former Black Panther and deceased former principal of Rice Catholic High School in Harlem.
Orlando is the central figure of a new book, "The Street Stops Here:A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem." The pages speak of a man who harnessed the energy of depression and loss into a mission of saving African-American children not only from the streets, but also from themselves.
Orlando was a young up-and-comer in 1985 whose young career as a high school principal was almost cut short when an asthmatic child who accompanied him on a field trip - and tested herself by embarking on a long-distance hike - died in his arms. Gober survived weeks of depression and declined physically, becoming a diabetic.
But he stayed at the New York City private school, St. Mark's, until he moved to Rice High School, where he became dean of students in the early 1990s. In 1999, at 46, he became a principal at Rice, one of the few African-Americans at the time to head a Catholic High School in the country.
While there, he left a mark that few other people could, inspiring hundreds of African-Americans with the force of his personality and his presence. When Gober spoke, everybody did more than listen. They were empowered.
And the 1999-00 school year would be the year that Gober made his biggest impact, before more tragedy would bookend a career full of ups and downs. That year, instill promise and hope in the minds of hundreds of African-Americans by imploring the importance of his mission: Getting an education.
Orlando was a big man who was no-nonsense talker and leader. He demanded that people not use his school as a babysitter, as so many parents do. He wanted them to show up for admission interviews with the principal with the idea that, when they were to leave Rice, they would have more than just a piece of paper in their hand. They would be better, smarter and mature young adults. Most who showed up for the interviews accepted his mission; those who didn't were shown the door.
Most of his staff accepted this mission, too, even as some butted heads with Gober continuously, and viewed his strong-willed character as stubbornness that seemed to trump fairness. Those who stayed around, however, believed Gober's positives greatly outweighed his negatives.
One who stuck around was a man known as Brother Walderman, who had been at Rice long before Gober's arrival. He was a more liberal elder of the Catholic order, a product of Vatican II. He constantly reminded people that his school was about providing a religious education but, more importantly, producing results. He frequently rolled off the list of successful people who graduated from Rice, including bank executives, basketball player Rod Strickland and a prominent member of Run DMC.
Even with all this support, however, going to the next level was always a struggle for many of the kids. Many dropped out; graduation class sizes were small - usually around 100 or less. The students always had to balance the demands of their neighborhood with what was good for them. When some students were former or active drug pushers, it was hard for the staff - and for the students themselves - to steer to the right path.
But Orlando was a powerful leader, and people knew that - particularly parents, and enrollment increased when he was put in charge. Slogans from him were everywhere, either frequently repeated by the students as they sat in class, or posted on the walls of the hallways. Kids entering this place understood that they were going to be disciplined if they crossed the line - and they had to leave the street behind them, slipping on uniforms and slipping off other clothing wear that the school viewed as troublesome.
Orlando, who saw race in virtually all things, employed his brother as a teacher, but his closest bond is with Chris Abbasse, a former partier who reformed himself and advocated in discipline. The two butted heads frequently when Gober first arrived at Rice. But Abbasse learned how to work with Gober and, together, they were an inseperable and powerful force.
Orlando, meanwhile, had run-ins with teachers who were as strong-willed as he is. One, in particular, was a science teacher who refused to do lab because, in his view, the students were not up for it. Orlando replaced him before the 2000-01 year with somebody more inferior, a teacher who ended up quitting after a few months. But the move was made for one reason: He didn't accept Gober's mission.
Other teachers were inexperienced. The math teacher was clueless, but math teachers were a dime a dozen, and Gober did his best to work with employees who were struggling but were considered necessary.
Many teachers left after only a year or two - and not just because of the pay. Orlando was overbearing, and some got an earful whenever they didn't see things Gober's way.
The students got an earful, too, but Orlando almost always mixed harsh words with compassion.
Gober always felt like a cloud was over his head: Losing people to the streets was like death. He didn't want to lose another one like he did in 1985.
Still, at the beginning of the 1999-00 school year, Orlando was not happy with freshman class. Early on, he chewed them out in classroom after classroom. Eventually, they caught on - and accepted his mission and purpose - just as they did at every school that employed Gober as an administrator.
Gober excelled in his first teaching job in the 1970s, but was taken aback when St. Mark's intiially treated him poorly. He went on to become a principal at another school but, ironically, went back to St. Mark's to become an administrator. The school at the time was afraid it was going to close; by the time he left, Gober doubled the enrollment.
Gober was married and then divorced, but he was more married to his work. He practically adopted some students, while he closely monitored others.
Some came in looking "gangsta," but he straightened them out through schooling and inspiration. Though he was diabetic, and despite having a poor diet and sometimes missing meals, Gober lived for these students and got them to work.
He also found time for fun. In 1999, Rice had its annual "Rice Jam," which went pretty well, save for a few flare ups. One student, named Larry, struck Orlando in the face. But, despite his reputation for toughness, he didn't expel him. Instead, Gober viewed it as youthful stupidity that wouldn't last.
Gober, in particular, had a good relationship with a student named Yusef, who didn't have a father and dealt drugs. While drugs exploded in the 1980s but tailed off in the 90s, Yusef tried to make a go of it as a way to support himself and his family. While at Rice, however, Yusef gave up the street life and bonded with Orlando better than anybody.
Other students bonded with the staff. One student, named Linwood, was smart but hyper. His dad was in jail, and he couldn't calm down. Linwood did well in school but not on his SATs. He bonded with the guidance counselor on his own volition, practically barging through the man's door whenever he wanted to see him. Others don't show that kind of initiative.
Ironically, few students from this school have gone to big places. Two boys made it to Columbia University once, but dropped out after their junior year. But graduation was viewed as the main, all-encompassing goal.
During the 1999-00 school year, teachers often complained about Orlando behind his back. They said they lost some of their best teachers because he forced them out. But Gober excelled at diffusing controversy by employing his skills as a showman.
During one gripe session, for instance, Gober burst into the middle of it and announced that Rice was a Vanguard school. The conversation was over; the celebration for the accomplishment began.
Gober believed that students - the poor ones, in particular - came first. He saw it as a connection to origins of Catholic schooling in the United States, when Irish made up the underclass for a long time.
Catholics wanted to lift the Irish up, so Catholic schools became the vehicle. To Gober and others, however, that mission got lost at Catholic schools began to cater to the suburbs. The enrollemnt of the city Catholic schools went on the decline after peaking in the 50s and 60s. Gober and Walderman hoped to reverse the trend.
All that didn't prevent Gober from being tough on students - even as they considered it tough love. During the 1999-00 school year, Yusef was suspected of dealing drugs, and he was accused of stealing a hat. Even though he was a Gober favorite, he had to go. He treated "Gobe" like a dad, often going to his office just to put his head on his shoulder. Even after his expulsion, however, Gober found a way to help Yusef, placing him in a Bronx school.
By the end of the year, the students improved, overall, and people like Linwood defied the odds and graduate. The basketball team won the championship, but they were also good students - a high priority in Orlando's eyes.
Many were inspired by Gober's speeches and his talks in class. The former Black Panther often equated the academic struggle with the civil rights struggle, and implored people to read the works of famous black figures.
Even though Orlando's diabetic symptoms got worse during the course of the year, his presence was dominant. He felt rejuvenated by the praise he received at a prayer breakfast at graduation. But his willingness to sacrifice his own health for the sake of the students became inspirational and legendary.
Despite recommendations against it, Gober taught during the summer of 2000 when he should have been getting a rest. But his health dramatically declined in August, when his brother noticed that he was developing Gangrene.
One day, the brother found Gober in a coma in his apartment. Orlando barely survived but his leg was amputated.
Later, despite feeling ashamed that he let the problem go as long as it did, he truly discovered the impact he had on people. He received an enormous amount of well-wishng through cards and calls. During the 2000-01 year, the school hung on even while he wasn't not there, doing work from his hospital bed. He made a triumphant return at the 2001 graduation, and he returned full-time as principal in September.
Physically, however, he was never the same. He became thinner and less mobile, and he was unable to impose his will in the same way. He was unable to connect with people as much. He was finally - and mercifully - dismissed in 2003, and then scouted around for jobs.
Then he suddenly died on the first day of school in 2005 - a month before the 20th anniversary of Samantha Brown's death, the girl who died in his arms.
But, as noted in The Street Stops Here, many now say they wouldn't have lived past their own struggles without Gober behind them, coaching them through times of trouble and triumph.
