The Times has a feature today on people living on the streets of New York - mostly around parks/ There are several compelling portraits of people with serious problems. None can be solved by simple commands: get a job, etc. though for several that is a reasonable goal. The first, Jose Reyes is living near Yankee Stadium, in or around the field where the stadium once stood. - gwc
Life on the Streets - The New York Times
By Nate Schweber
AGE
19
ORIGINALLY FROM
Highbridge section of the Bronx
HOMELESS SINCE
May 2014 (sporadically)
LOCATION
Outside Heritage Field
Jose Morales and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Kimberly Williams, who is five months pregnant, had built a shelter out of a blanket tethered to a fence, underneath the No. 4 train.
Mr. Morales said he grew up in a troubled home in the Bronx and eventually attended high school at a residential treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction. When he got out, he went into foster care with a family in Brooklyn, because his mother had been sent to prison on drug charges. He rebelled.
"I didn't want to listen, I didn't want to do no chores, I didn't want to obey no curfew," he said. "If I was able to go back right now, I'd apologize and fix it."
He was sent to another foster home in the Bronx. That was when he met Ms. Williams over Facebook. When she was kicked out of her home on Long Island after a fight with her grandmother, Mr. Morales allowed her to stay with him — a violation of house rules. They were both evicted.
They squatted on a rooftop in Brooklyn before taking up residence in their current location. They went to the city intake center in the Bronx for homeless families, but learned they were ineligible because they were not married or in a domestic partnership.
On Wednesday night, they huddled together on the sidewalk and watched a praying mantis crawl on the fence above their bed.
"I go around, I ask for a job here and there, but nobody's hiring," Mr. Morales said. "This isn't good for her, it isn't good for me."
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