It’s not what you don’t do. It’s what you do.
For our Staten Island neighbors living on the streets and in the clutches of addiction, getting high and hiding may sometimes seem like the only escape.
Figuring out how to undo this cycle is not as easy as just saying no.
It takes saying yes — Yes to creating new pathways in the brain, yes to new joys and pleasure triggers, yes to new self-acceptance, and yes to new hopes for the future.
Such are the lessons learned at Project Hospitality’s O’Callaghan House and Carpenter House, where street homeless men and women create their own, unique bridges to recovery and independent housing. Here, residents are bolstered by 24-hour services and gently shown how to forge new positive habits and associations. Here they find their footing. They create the roadmap for success that they bring with them on their next step into permanent housing.
“If it hadn’t been for this place, Project Hospitality, I can honestly say I’d probably be dead right now,” said James, 53, after finishing his lunch at O’Callaghan House — the first roof over his head since his life on the streets and in the ferry terminal.
But when James first found Project Hospitality, he wasn’t yet ready to be independent. He was using heroin, drinking and trying to make his 6-foot-3 inch foot frame recede from anybody’s caring view. “I am here to get better and this place has done it for me.”
James was initially enfolded in Project Hospitality’s continuum of care through our Street to Treatment team. From that hand up, he started our Wellness and Recovery day program, and developed bonds with counselors, social workers and peers grappling with similar struggles. He began showing up religiously three times a week.
When a bed opened up at O’Callaghan House, he said he got on his knees with thanks. Over the past year he found the rhythm of new joys: Trips to the Zoo, to the city for shows, to the supermarket weekly, and in the groups where was able to unburden some of the heaviness of his past.
“The staff here, I can’t say enough about them. Every one of them here have brought me here to help me become the person I am now. This place right here was the liaison to my family,” said James, smiling as he talked about the permanent, supportive housing O’Callaghan house staff is working to find him. “This place right here was the liaison to my family also. My sister and brother can’t believe how good I’m doing.”
For some chronically street homeless, the journey to stable, independent living is as much about carving a way forward as it is about eschewing the past. Providing an instantaneous roof over their head isn’t enough. They need a group environment to start the transition from the harsh life of uncertainty.
“I have a sense of who I am again, for the first time in a long time,” said Hali, who endured repeated bouts of homelessness and attempts at recovery over the years. O’Callaghan House staff inspired her to begin intensive addiction recovery with our partner, the YMCA. The community of support at home and in her program has prepared her to move into living situation. “O’Callaghan house led my way,” she said.
“I used a computer for the first time after coming here,” said Sven, a resident at Carpenter House, who since arriving at the transitional shelter has found full-time work, and paid off old debt. He was also able to access the internet; and located his brother in Japan, after decades.
The response, he said, was instantaneous. “He answered right away. I couldn’t believe it,” said Sven, who with his new income, will be moving to permanent housing. “I had a tear in my eye.”