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V I S I T U S AT H O M E L E S S V O I C E . O R G

Publisher

Vendor and client Michael White | Photo by Miranda Schumes

The Homeless Voice is owned by the COSAC Foundation, a multi-faceted non-profit agency that feeds, shelters, and arranges access to social and medical services to every homeless person that enters its shelters. We aim to enable them to return to a self-reliant lifestyle, but for the small percentage of people incapable, we provide a caring and supportive environment for long-term residency.

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Originally made by a team tasked to raise money from the streets for the shelter, the Homeless Voice was born from the knowledge that freedom of press was a way to raise awareness. We started as a flyer, then a 4-page newsprint, then finally becoming the voice of the homeless with the Homeless Voice newspaper and website in 1999.

In this newspaper we hope to present the problems that the homeless population faces day-to-day, the problems these people personally face, and the ways that laws can help and hinder them.

Visit us at to read past issues, see online-only content, and a full map of where you can find this paper.

Many of our vendors are clients of our shelters, brought to different major cities to vend this paper in return for a donation. Based out of Lake City — where our Veterans Inn shelter and Motel 8 is located — or Davie, they are always brought out in groups of four to help each other stay motivated and keep each other company. They’re given plenty of food and water for the day and don bright shirts to distinguish them as our vendors.

Depending on their specific job in vending this newspaper, all vendors take in about 75% of donations that day, with the remaining 25% put back into the paper.

We distribute in all major cities throughout Florida, including Tallahassee, Lake City, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, Daytona, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and now Gainesville.

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022

Sean Cononie

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Fraieli

Executive Editor Mark Targett

Contributers Dori Zinn Mary Stewart Joe Pye

COSAC Foundation PO Box 292-577 Davie, FL 33329 954-924-3571 Cover design by Andrew Fraieli

Check out our previous issues and other stories at Homelessvoice.org V I S I T U S AT H O M E L E S S V O I C E . O R G

KITCHENS

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 4, October 2021 1

Thank you to Publix Super Markets Charities for donating to the Homeless Voice’s Food Bank!

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022 3

Commissioner Ken Russell. “The solutions to homelessness exist and do not require reinventing the wheel,” he told the Miami New Times. “We have the land and we have the funds and I hope to work with my fellow commissioners on proven solutions that we can implement now.”

According to the Miami Herald, Carollo resists calling the ordinance criminalizing, pointing to Miami’s funding of homeless programs and “arguing that it shouldn’t grant unchecked freedoms to people who choose to live on the street and resist shelter.”

...they can bring [them] into their home and they can give them all the care, the love, the humane treatment that they want.”

Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo. | Photo courtesy of Miami New Times

Miami Bans Homeless Encampments, Establishes “Adopta-Homeless Person” Program A resolution sponsored by Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo has passed, banning homeless encampments, as well as creating an “Adopt-a-Homeless” program.

By Andrew Fraieli

O

n October 28, Miami commissioners voted 4-1 to pass an ordinance sponsored

by Commissioner Joe Carollo to ban homeless encampments.

The ordinance gives police the authority to give a written warning to violators, allow them only two hours to remove their belongings, and offer them a shelter bed if it is available. If they refuse, police can arrest them, and they can face a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail.

The definition of encampment in the ordinance is the presence of any tent or structure for human habitation, usage of heating devices, and the “unauthorized accumulation of personal property,” larger than three cubic feet.

The sole vote against the ordinance was by

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The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022

Criminalization is exactly what it is. This is an ordinance that establishes criminal punishment. That’s criminalization.”

This is a common argument for criminalizing those living on the streets, but fails to take into consideration the sometimes dangerous conditions of shelters where many might have their few belongings stolen. Even the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust’s chairman, Rob Book, has continuously repeated the belief of unhoused people wanting to stay on the streets, refusing to support public bathrooms as he believes they sustain homelessness.

One advocate against the resolution is David Peery, a plaintiff from the Pottinger Agreement that was abolished in 2019, attorney, and chairman of the Advocacy Committee of the Camillus Health Concern Consumer Advisory Board, a nonprofit that brings healthcare and support to unhoused and poor people in Miami-Dade county.

He makes clear to the Miami Herald that “criminalization is exactly what it is. This is an ordinance that establishes criminal punishment. That’s criminalization.”

Along with a ban on encampments, the city commissioners also passed a resolution creating a “Adopt-a-Homeless Person” program.

Carollo interjected during public comment on the encampment ban ordinance, according to the Miami New Times, suggesting it be created after shouting, “I’m sick of this hypocrisy!”

He next asked the crowd, of which many criticized the ordinance for criminalizing homelessness according to New Times, whoever would adopt a homeless person to raise their hands. He then told the city clerk to “make a list of all the people here that want to adopt the homeless so that they can bring [them] into their home and they can give them all the care, the love, the humane treatment that they want.”

According to the resolution, the program is to “provide aid to homeowners in the city that are willing to assist the local homeless population by welcoming a homeless individual into their home to live with them by providing a bed and daily essentials such as food, water, electricity and any other necessities as deemed appropriate by the program at no cost to the city.”

Within the resolution, it also directs the City Manager, Art Noriega, to “explore all feasible options to establish such Program at no cost to the City,” referencing options such as the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.

“This resolution is a joke, right?” Dean Bairaktaris, a homeless advocate in Fort Lauderdale who is experiencing homelessness, told the Miami New Times.

“Who’s going to adopt anyone? It’s a fucking sick joke.”

• Are you a public university student with your tuition waived due to homelessness?

We want to hear your story.

• Are you experiencing homelessness and want to go to a public university?

We want to help you go to university without having to pay tuition

• Are you experiencing homelessness, enrolled now at a public university, and didn’t know you could get your tuition waived?

We want to try to help you through the process of getting your tuition waived.

Email us at andrew@homelessvoice.org

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022 5

, s, ry

By Mary Stewart

I

remember the first time that I was pregnant, homeless, and hungry. As a matter of fact, that’s what my cardboard sign said at the time, but many people didn’t believe it because I wasn’t showing yet. I already had a daughter, who was living with a local relative because of my homelessness, and I had no interest in bringing another child into this world given my situation.

This was in 2007, and I had been homeless for less than a year. Hurricane Wilma had destroyed my trailer the year before, I had lost my financial aid for college, and my long-term boyfriend had broken up with me. I was on the rebound and not even sure about paternity, which brought me much shame.

I still cared about my unborn baby, and since I was struggling with substance abuse, I reached out to seek treatment through Gratitude House in West Palm, Florida and Panda in Belle Glade. Both have since closed down, but neither facility would accept me due to my co-occurring Bipolar Disorder.

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The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022

Yet, the mental health facilities wouldn’t accept me either, as my medications placed my unborn baby at high risk for Spina Bifida, a condition along the spine that can cause severe physical and mental disabilities.

Currently, St. Mary’s Hospital continues to be one of the few facilities in Palm Beach County that will treat a pregnant woman for mental illness.

I even tried halfway houses, but found that programs for homeless individuals declined pregnant women due to liability concerns without explaining much farther.

Recently, New Path Halfway House in Lantana has begun accepting pregnant women — who have the ability to pay rent — but I was not aware of this resource at the time.

I tried turning to family programs such as the Lord’s Place in West Palm Beach and Adopt-a-Family in Lake Worth, but they refused to accept me as well because I wasn’t considered a family until the baby was born.

In desperation, I walked into my local Department of Children and Families (DCF) office, but they told me

the same thing — they couldn’t help me until the baby was born.

People have asked me why I aborted a baby at 17 weeks along, and I’ve always replied that abortion was a last resort. Adoption may have not even been plausible given the risk of Spina Bifida. When I shared my story with the Presidential Women’s Center in West Palm Beach, they agreed to perform the abortion free of charge.

The staff were very compassionate and nonjudgmental, but abortion was a heartbreaking decision for me, and I have never forgiven myself. Later, I spoke out on Channel 12 news about the lack of resources for women who are pregnant and homeless in the hopes that maybe something would change.

It didn’t.

Later that year, I became pregnant again by the man who is now my husband. Once again, I was homeless, but relocated to South Carolina as advised by my juvenile dependency attorney. I stepped off the Greyhound bus

with just one suitcase, but managed to obtain a doublewide trailer, a Ford Focus, and everything my baby needed by the time he was born, thanks to my husband’s hard-work, my in-laws’ support, and survivors benefits from my father who had recently passed away.

they refused to accept me as well because I wasnt considered a family until the baby was born.

I enjoyed motherhood and family life, but the 2008 recession hit my household hard. My husband lost his job, our car was repossessed, and we had to move to a smaller trailer and go on welfare. Unfortunately, we could only receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits for 18 months, since the father was in the picture. Afterwards, we headed back to Florida, desperately seeking employment, only to lose custody of our son before ever getting back on our feet.

Ten years later, I became pregnant again while chronically homeless. My husband and I were separated, and I was pregnant by my ex, who was sleeping by a local canal. We had nothing to offer a baby, but I was excited about being a mom again and held onto hope that things would improve.

I tried holding the same sign that read, “Pregnant, Homeless, and Hungry”, but after a woman said a snide remark about my predicament being my own fault, I stopped telling people that I was pregnant. Eventually, my enlarged belly began to speak for itself.

Since I had a re-opened DCF case on one of my older children, I was able to receive a referral to the Drug Abuse Foundation’s (DAF) Mom & Baby Program towards the end of my pregnancy. Most of the moms at the program were referred to the Adopt-a-Family transitional housing program or the Susan B. Anthony Center in Broward after completing treatment, but the staff had concerns about my Bipolar Disorder, and I knew that DCF might take the baby regardless.

So I took a chance.

I fled the program a week before labor was scheduled to be induced and immediately contacted an adoption attorney. I first heard about Charlotte Danciu, a respected Boca Raton adoption attorney, from a homeless couple that I’m friends with who had done two adoptions. I never thought that I would be strong enough to carry a baby for nine months, only to hand them over. That is, until I was left with no other choice.

Surprisingly, the process went beautifully. I had the opportunity to meet my baby’s new parents, and they

were everything that I wanted for my child.

I continue to receive pictures and updates, and the baby is obviously happy and doing well.

Since birth mothers are eligible for assistance with living expenses, my adoption lawyer tried to help me get on my feet, but I simply had too many barriers to selfsufficiency.

A few months later, I reconciled with my husband and became pregnant again for the last time. I was sleeping in a tent and struggling with substance abuse in a thwarted effort to numb the grief of the recent adoption. I considered relocating and attempting to be a mother again. In my heart, that’s what I really wanted, but I was afraid to fail another child, so I decided to do another adoption.

I briefly lived at New Path Halfway House during the pregnancy, but missed my husband too much, so left again.

I attempted treatment at the Family Center for Recovery as well, which Mary Stewart has been chronically homeless for about 16 years. | Photo courtesy of Mary Stewart actually accepts dually diagnosed pregnant women, but I didn’t last long there either. I needed my local maternity home that accepts women over the age husband’s support through the adoption process, so I of 25. spent most of my pregnancy living in motel rooms or If you are homeless, pregnant, and addicted, there are tents. Danciu, the adoption attorney, tried to find me local treatment centers, such as DAF and the Family an efficiency, but nobody Center, which can help you get sober and have a healthy would rent to me due to baby. Although I regret my own abortion, I do respect background and credit a woman’s choice, and will admit that the Presidential issues, so I eventually went Women’s Center is a very compassionate facility for into labor in the woods. women who are considering that option.

This time I didn’t cry for I absolutely cherish the memories of my brief period nearly as long, but I think of motherhood, and I totally understand why a woman at that point, I no longer would want to keep a baby despite experiencing had any tears left to shed. homelessness. I just strongly recommend that women Although I never regretted develop a support system and establish a plan to choosing adoption, it was still address their issues and provide for their child if they one more painful decision. plan on parenting. The Lord’s Place and Adopt-a-Family Fortunately, Danciu has the are excellent resources that can help after the baby is patience of a saint and she’s born. always been there if I need to I have become a strong advocate for adoption after talk. And yes, I’m finally back experiencing homelessness and pregnancy, however, on birth control. it’s important to make sure that an adoption agency is Sadly, being pregnant legitimate, as there are sketchy agencies out there. I can place a woman in an recommend dealing with a reputable adoption attorney inbetween state, where she’s no longer an individual, instead of an agency, and I personally had a wonderful but not yet considered a family. Although there are experience working with Charlotte Danciu. few resources for a woman in this situation, help does I continue to try to raise awareness about exist. There are maternity homes for younger pregnant homelessness and pregnancy, and hope that one day, women — between the ages of 18-25 — including there will be more resources available to assist women Mary’s Home on the Treasure Coast, which is the only who are in this predicament.

Sadly, being pregnant can place a woman in an inbetween state, where she’s no longer an individual, but not yet considered a family.

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022 7

Story and Photo Illustrations

by Andrew Fraieli

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The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022

B

asically the street was the bathroom.

That’s it.”

This is according to one man experiencing homelessness in Manhattan who goes by Derf. “When the pandemic started, nobody was trying to even let us walk into any store, at all. A lot of the McDonald’s were closed, the Wendy’s, the Burger Kings — they weren’t letting us try to use the bathrooms at all. It was horrible.”

Public restrooms and restrooms accessible to the public — like those in a Starbucks or McDonald’s — are not the same. Public bathrooms are designed for the entire public, but have been dwindling for years, slowly being taken over by these private businesses that are designed for customers, allowing the owners to charge and turn away whoever they desire.

Most often those being turned away are those experiencing homelessness, but they were already being refused before the pandemic too. Lockdowns and closures have simply exaggerated and shown to the general public what those living on the streets reckon with constantly: the almost complete lack of easy access to a restroom.

This privatization and lacking of public restrooms becomes a classist issue according to Taunya Lovell Banks, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law. Private businesses can make decisions about who can come in, for what cost, and can easily discriminate in a way that a public bathroom could not.

“It’s a class issue, it’s a race issue, it’s a gender issue,” she said to PEW last year. And, “[during the pandemic,] middle-class white people who normally have greater access to toilets in public spaces are all of a sudden being denied access. Now they’re woke to it.”

New York’s own official tourist website tells of the snags the city has faced in improving public restroom access, mentioning how the city “contracted more than a decade ago to build 20 automatic public toilets” and how “most remain in a warehouse in Queens.”

The website does cite their park department’s website for public toilets in parks across the city, but also says that “sizable department stores, large-chain bookstores and restaurants offer restroom facilities for their customers,” highlighting private, customeronly, restrooms in the same breath as public ones.

A rally in Manhattan in 2018 highlighted this discrepancy, with City Council member Antonio Reynoso, according to the New York Daily News, calling for the mayor to have the remaining 15 automatic toilets installed. By then, they had been sitting in the warehouse for 12 years.

WHERE NEW YORK gives advice and lists some public restrooms, as well as privatized ones, the city of Miami has almost none. This leaves private businesses as the most common, and in some places sole, place to find a restroom.

Many of these private businesses require a purchase before allowing someone to use the restroom. To the general public, this may be inconsequential, but it can be as much a barrier as a locked door to those living on the street who need every penny they have to survive.

Derf elaborates that no matter where the restroom is, and whether it’s public or private, they all have a cost anyways. Between the hours spent finding one and not earning money elsewhere, and the cost of transportation to get to the restroom, the price to enter a toilet is just another thrown on top.

This is assuming they are allowed into the business’ restroom at all. A Dunkin’ Donuts once told Mary Stewart, who has been experiencing homelessness for more than a decade in the Palm Beach area of Florida — and has previously written for the Homeless Voice — that they didn’t “want business from my kind of people.”

“If you can’t access a public restroom, and the businesses don’t want you going there…basically, if I had to go, I had no choice but to go in public,” Stewart continues.

David Peery, a lawyer who has experienced homelessness in Miami, a plaintiff from the Supreme Court case that created the Pottinger Agreement, and founder of the Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity (MCARE), says, in Miami, there’s a similar “uneasy tension.”

At Starbucks, “they know who’s homeless and who’s not. They give you that look when you come in, and give all types of reasons and excuses why they can’t give you that 4 or 5-digit pin code to actually get through the door and into that restroom,” he says. And at most McDonald’s he knows, they are “just openly hostile to the homeless coming in.”

The cost Derf speaks of, whether literal or consequential, as well as this classism and outright hostility of some businesses, forces many into the embarrassing and degrading situation of having to relieve themselves outside. And in places where this is illegal, according to Banks, “You’re criminalizing having a bladder.”

NEW YORK, WHERE public urination can be charged as a civil offense rather than a criminal one, issued 637 court summons for public urination in 2018. 2019 had 464, and by 2020 it fell to only 270 according to their online criminal and civil court summons reports.

Miami, on the other hand, has an ordinance stating that urination and defecation in public, unless by a child under 5 or by someone with a medical issue related to the bowels or the bladder, is punishable by a $500.00 fine, up to 60 days in jail, or both.

According to police reports supplied to the Homeless Voice by the Miami police department under a public records request, they arrested 12 people in 2018 for public urination, three in 2019, three in 2020, and seven in 2021 as of November.

Other Florida cities have similar laws. Tampa, for example, has similar arrest rates as well, arresting one person in 2018 for public urination, eight in 2019, one in 2020 and one in 2021 as of October.

Miami’s department of Resilience and Public Works told the Homeless Voice, though, that it had no comprehensive record of the public restrooms within the city.

According to Peery, this is because there are none.

The sole public restrooms are in the public library, he says, and inside the Government Center. Both of which are closed at night, and the library is closed on Sundays.

Perry references another public restroom that was built in late 2019 under the Metrorail station at Flagler Street and NW First Avenue for $300,000, but which has since been demolished. “Talk about fiscal responsibility and prudent use of public funds,” Peery says.

Stewart describes the public restroom issues in Boca Raton, where she’s currently experiencing homelessness, as more nuanced, saying the “access” to public restrooms has certainly decreased “because they started running homeless people out of the park.”

She also “definitely haven’t noticed them building public restrooms.”

...[during the pandemic,] middleclass white people who normally have greater access to toilets in public spaces are all of a sudden being denied access. Now they’re woke to it.”

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022 9

WHETHER IT’S NEW YORK, Boca Raton, or Miami, people are being arrested for relieving themselves outside, and many of those people are experiencing homelessness and have no other choice. The need for public restrooms are not solely tied to helping people experiencing homelessness though, public bathrooms would help everyone. But often, homelessness is used as the excuse to remove or not even build them.

According to the Miami Herald, the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust — the agency in charge of all funding, planning, and management of Miami’s priorities towards homelessness — is “philosophically opposed to building more public bathrooms.”

“The Trust’s leaders believe [public bathrooms] only encourage homeless people to stay on the streets rather than move to a shelter where they can receive a continuum of care, education, job training and financial support to make the transition to permanent housing,” they continue.

Ron Book, the Chairman of the Trust, which has a $65 million annual budget, told the Miami New Times, “Bathrooms and showers do nothing but sustain homelessness. It keeps folks out on the streets. It does nothing to end it.” He also elaborated to the Miami Herald that “bathrooms serve as a magnet for the [homeless] population to congregate and it becomes a burden on that area. You could try moving them away from businesses and condos, but where?”

In an op-ed in the Miami Herald in 2019, Peery directly responds to the Trust’s “philosophical opposition” saying, “I did not become homeless as a result of relieving myself in public facilities. And my own trips to the rare public bathrooms in downtown Miami certainly did not encourage me to remain homeless.”

Now, in 2021, Peery tells the Homeless Voice that the public restroom situation has “transgressed from ridiculous to dangerous.” “[The Homeless Trust] has a policy of closing public restrooms and it has significant, concrete, public health implications to it. The failure to be able to wash your hands, control infections, during the height of the century’s worst pandemic? That’s outrageous. It’s dangerous, reckless.”

The Homeless Trust agreed to an interview, but did not communicate further prior to publication.

According to Peery, Miami’s “reluctant” response in early 2020 was to install about half a dozen port-opotties for a period from April 2020 to late winter. He says the city did not maintain them, allowing feces to

flow out of them for two to three weeks at a time.

“I used to think it was a matter of bureaucracy or incompetence, but after several years of dealing with this, I believe they know exactly what they are doing, these are intentional actions,” says Peery. “They are intentionally keeping these services off the streets in order to create these conditions, to justify their authoritarian actions that they take against the poor.”

To Derf, the idea of public bathrooms perpetuating homelessness is “a crock of shit.” He sees the issue being misled anxieties on improper usage of bathrooms — be it drugs, sex, or to sleep in. Derf agrees that these misuses happen, but that people like Book aren’t empathetic enough to care to figure it out.

Another argument, expressed by Book, is that those living on the streets want to stay there.

Stewart thinks there does need to be a pressure for those experiencing homeless to go to shelters, or find help to get a job and apartment, “but if you’re not

providing adequate resources, not providing sufficient alternatives, than it’s only humane to allow homeless people to stay outside, to build restrooms for them.”

But to Peery, emphasizing the difference between urban homelessness and being in the woods, any excuse saying people living on the street want to live there is wholly ridiculous. “Why would anybody subject themselves to the theft, the violence, the intense trauma of urban homelessness? That’s intensely traumatizing, nobody chooses that. Absolutely no one, without question.”

He sees the argument as presenting those experiencing homelessness as the problem since it’s “their choice”, not the system’s fault.

“If you say that people choose to do something, then you can justify criminalizing laws and voluntary confinement and things like that,” says Peery. “If people are doing things involuntarily, then that requires you to look at structural issues and the systemic changes that need to be made. And they want to maintain the status quo, they don’t want to change the system. They’d rather blame the victims of the system.”

Public restrooms could, rather, solve many of the issues that are frequently complained about, by the city and the public, says Stewart.

“Adding public restrooms will not only be beneficial for the homeless, but will be beneficial for the public,” she says. “Littering, the sanitation, the poor hygiene, the public urination: the public restroom will be the solution to a lot of these issues.”

With this policy against public restrooms, they’re actually “creating the very conditions they complain about,” Peery says.

He hears city commissioners complain about trash, but not put more trash receptacles or sanitation services. According to Perry, they say those experiencing homelessness are “messing up life for us ‘normal tax-paying citizens’, but they’re the ones who actually created those conditions that they’re not only complaining about, but using to justify violating the civil rights of the homeless.”

These issues exist outside of Florida and New York as well.

THE ACLU CALIFORNIA released a report called “Outside The Law: The legal war against unhoused people” where they pointed out the same issue of how “local governments also withhold lifesaving services such as public restroom facilities and then criminalize unhoused people for necessary bodily functions like urination…”

And the North Carolina Law Review highlighted how dog parks and bags for disposing of dog waste are common, yet public restrooms are rare, saying, “The failure to provide bathrooms while prohibiting public urination and defecation is dehumanizing enough, but the prioritization of dogs over homeless individuals adds insult to injury.”

“Look at who the head of the homeless trust is, and where he comes from and who the Homeless Trust serves, they don’t serve the homeless, in fact, the Homeless trust doesn’t trust the homeless,” Peery continues. “They’re serving the business community, they’re serving the condo owners and residents, the corporate interests downtown, that’s who the constituency is.”

“There’s no sufficient alternatives to homelessness, there’s really not, and until there are sufficient alternatives, they need to allow people to camp out,” says Stewart. “They need to build things like public restrooms, allow homeless people to have access to toilets, running water, take a shower, wash up — because anything less than that is inhumane.”

Derf, 50, a man experiencing homelessness, panhandling outside a McDonald’s in Manhattan. | Photo by Andrew Fraieli

10 The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022

Homeless Prevention:

Three Financial Choices That Are Hard to Fix Whether you had a lot of money and lost it all, or have barely enough to manage, how you handle money matters. Smart financial choices are made by knowing the difference between what ideas help you, and which hurt you.

By Dori Zinn

1.

Credit Card Misuse Credit cards are one of the most popular ways to borrow money, but if you aren’t careful, you could face some expensive payments.

Credit cards let you pay for purchases now — up to your credit limit — and once the billing cycle closes, issues you a statement and due date with a minimum payment, usually a percentage of your total statement.

This is fine if you can’t afford anything else and paying more would cause you financial distress. But only paying the minimum amount will mean you get hit with interest charges on whatever balance you carry over to the next month.

Credit card interest charges vary a lot by the issuer and your credit score when you were approved for the card. Average credit card interest rates right now are about 16%. To compare, average personal loan interest rates with excellent credit can hover around 9%.

Credit scores are partially based on your credit usage.

Keeping your total credit use at 30% or less is preferred.

If you carry a balance on your credit card from month to month, your usage can climb, causing your credit score to dip. This, in turn, can hurt your chances of borrowing in the future, like getting an auto loan or another credit card.

If you’re constantly hitting your credit limit and not making payments for a few months, your lender could close your account.

You don’t have to give up credit cards entirely to avoid credit card misuse. Instead, start with some best practices, like: Only spending what you can afford: Even if you’re only buying groceries or gas with your credit card, make sure you’re only buying what you can pay back once the pay period ends. This might not be a lot to start, but that’s OK. Pay your balance off in full: To take advantage of an interest-free loan every month, you’ll need to pay off your balance every month. Otherwise, you could get hit with interest charges.

Get a card with perks: If your credit is in decent shape, you might qualify for a credit card with cashback rewards. This is when you get a percentage of your purchase back in cash. For instance, you could get 3% back at the grocery store and 2% back at gas stations.

You can get rewarded for usage, even when you’re only using your card when you need it.

2.

Payday Loans You might have seen these storefronts while walking or driving by various strip malls. They’re usually decorated with signs like “Get money today!” and “No credit check required!”

Payday loans are short-term loans usually for a small amount, like $500 or less, that get repaid by the borrower’s next payday — anywhere from 14 to 30 days.

These types of loans have exceptionally high interest rates — upwards of 400%. It’s very difficult for borrowers who are struggling to pay back the loan, with interest, by the due date. This causes many people to get into a payday loan cycle, borrowing more payday loans to pay off the old ones and racking up fees and interest charges.

While some cities and states have outlawed payday loans, Florida isn’t one of them. If you don’t have a decent credit history — or much of any credit history at all — payday loans seem pretty enticing. You get money right away without worrying about how your credit score will hurt you. In turn, you can get into a vicious borrowing cycle.

Instead, try some payday loan alternatives, like: Payday Alternative Loans (PALs): Some credit unions offer PALs, ranging anywhere from $200 to $1,000. You usually have to join the credit union to take advantage of these, but you’ll have much more time to pay off the loan — usually up to six months.

Cash advance app: If you’re working, you’re earning money. Apps like Dave, PayActiv, Earnin, and others let you borrow a small amount of money before your next payday with few to no fees. While these apps charge fees for use and they do add up, they’re much smaller compared to payday loans, keeping you from staying in the cycle of borrowing money with a massive APR. Community resources: Look into local charities, nonprofits, and religious groups for some financial resources. Some have grant programs — money that doesn’t have to be repaid — while others offer interestfree loans. You can also try calling 2-1-1, a help line connecting to United Ways Florida, to get help like food, housing, employment, health care and counseling.

3.

Putting Off Saving Saving money is difficult, especially when there’s so little to save — if any at all — after you’ve paid your bills.

But saving money, even if it’s very little, can add up.

For instance, saving $10 a month is $120 a year.

Saving $25 a month is $300 a year. Saving $50 a month is $600 a year. A little bit can go a long way, so you don’t need to be too hard on yourself when you start to save.

Your savings can cover car repairs, medical bills, or other emergencies you might not have now but possibly could later in life. Use savings as a “what if” fund: what if you lose your job and can’t find work right away? What if you get hurt and get back to work? What if your car dies or a loved one passes away? There are so many possibilities. Savings will help.

Start by creating and reviewing your budget. Try to make a line item for your savings by adding even a little bit to your savings account every month. You can open a savings account at your current bank or another one that lets you transfer money by setting up auto-pay or manually triggering a deposit.

Setting up auto-pay is the best way to set it and forget it, treating it like a bill of sorts and not necessarily an afterthought. But for some people, it’s not always feasible. Only do this if you’ve made room in your budget for it.

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 23 Issue 1, January 2022 11

Story by Joe Pye • Art by Andrew Fraieli

Temperatures in South Florida can drop below 40 degrees. Without shelter, the elements are harmful and potentially deadly, even here.

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M

ary Stewart was sleeping in a tent in the woods for two years by the time she first caught pneumonia.

She coughed up phlegm and mucus non-stop into napkins and toilet paper from a local McDonald’s. An entire week went by where she laid bundled in a coat, burning up from a fever while shivering from body chills, having no energy to eat or go out and panhandle.

After seven days, her hunger grew too painful to rest any longer, so she pulled herself together and left the tent she called home in search of a can of soup from a nearby Winn Dixie. Up until then, Stewart says she survived solely on water and other liquids. The next day, she took an hour-long bus ride to the emergency room in JFK Medical Center in Lake Worth. “[The nurses] had to put me on oxygen and rush me in for a chest x-ray,” says Stewart, who’s written for the Homeless Voice. “They said I had pneumonia on my left lung and admitted me for an entire week.”

That was the middle of January in Palm Beach, Florida.

Fourteen years — and one more bout of pneumonia — later, and Stewart still sleeps in a tent outside, chronically homeless since 2005. And her story is common to hear for homeless healthcare providers throughout the country.

Wintertime health risks for the homeless For those who are unsheltered — meaning living somewhere not fit for human habitation such as the street, an abandoned building etc. — the winter season can bring life-threatening health risks according to Dr. Courtney Pladsen.

Pladsen is the director of clinical and quality improvement at the National Health Care Council for the Homeless (NHCHC), a nonprofit organization that works with more than 300 clinics across the country training and sharing research, including in Portland, Maine where she is based.

They’ve closed hotels and motels and that funding is over. Shelters are not opening more beds and there are no new ones being built.”

The effects of cold weather on people experiencing homelessness are “all too familiar,” to her, she says.

One issue many patients come to her with is a condition called “trench foot,” where they step in snow and can’t dry off as they have nowhere warm and dry to go to.

They can develop painful blisters that make it difficult

to walk and can lead to infection.

Another risk is from the cold alone.

“I’ve had patients who have had amputations because of frostbite,” Pladsen says, “and lots who’ve had nerve damage.”

But the biggest health risk is hypothermia.

Hypothermia is when body temperature falls below 95 F, a “severe medical emergency,” according to the NHCHC. The heart, brain, and kidneys can malfunction, and lead to death.

“Malnutrition, decreased body fat, underlying infection, lack of fitness, fatigue, inadequate shelter and heat,” are all risk factors for developing hypothermia, and all common in those experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

According to the National Coalition for Homelessness’ 2010 report “Bringing Our Neighbors in from the Cold,” relatively few people die directly from hypothermia, but rather complications that come from it. The report highlights how, “even those who seek shelter – and are allowed to enter – are frequently turned back onto the streets during the day,” leaving them to bear the cold once again.

“700 people experiencing or at risk of homelessness are killed from hypothermia annually in the United Mary Stewart has been chronically homeless for about 16 years. | Photo by Mary Stewart States,” the same report estimates.

This is because the risk of hypothermia is not solely individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness — tied to outdoor ambient temperature, but also wind- 192,793 too few. According to that same 2010 report, chill, amount of clothing to protect, and whether that out of a sample of 50 emergency winter shelters across clothing is even dry. the country, only 20 opened above 32 F, the rest Many people experiencing homelessness are also opened either when it dropped even farther, or to the experiencing alcohol and substance abuse dependency. shelter’s own discretion at the time.

Alcohol, nicotine, street drugs, and some medication all increase the risk of developing hypothermia, according to the NHCHC. This is something Stewart has experienced and was surprised about. Throughout the 16 years she’s been on and off the streets, friends of hers have died due to alcohol and drug dependency.

“I didn’t even know that,” she says. “I’ve known a lot of people who would drink whiskey when it’s 45 degrees out. Imagine people in New York or New Jersey.”

In Pladsen’s experience, northern cities are rarely prepared to handle the amount of people who need shelter in the winter months. Most cities nationwide, she says, lack cold-weather response plans. To make matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has lessened volunteers, closed shelters, and lowered the amount of beds available, generally amplifying challenges for homeless service providers and the communities they assist.

This leads to the possibilities of these health risks Pladsen was weary of, as those needing the shelter are forced back outside during the day again — if they had found a bed to begin with.

Last year, cities had specific funding called ESG-CV funding, an Emergency Solutions Grant through the Before the pandemic, emergency shelter beds for CARES Act. Cities could use ESG-CV funding for hotels cold weather were already too few for the amount of and motels to decompress shelters and house people

Programs that were online last year for winter in many places are now closed with nothing else new coming online.”

An “unprecedented” winter

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during these cold months.

But this year, many cities and municipalities have run out of that money.

Shelters that were overburdened prior to the pandemic have been cut to half capacity, making it that much tougher to find beds during winter months.

Many soup kitchens throughout the country have closed as well due to the pandemic and there are fewer volunteers to help, according to Pladsen.

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) tracks the number of “sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night,” called a “Point-in-Time Count.” That single night is in January and the count is repeated annually.

The last count was in January 2020, just before the pandemic began, and Pladsen points out, the first time since the count began in 2007 that unsheltered individuals outnumbered sheltered ones. “So more people are opting to sleep outdoors than in shelters,” she says. “And that was before the pandemic.”

All signs suggest that this season will be more severe with what Pladsen calls, “a winter with unprecedented challenges.”

“Programs that were online last year for winter in many places are now closed with nothing else new coming online,” she says. “They’ve closed hotels and motels and that funding is over. Shelters are not opening more beds and there are no new ones being built. So it has created a particular challenge this year from last year.”

Florida and the unhoused: little shelter, little health care Florida is a non-Medicaid expansion state under the Affordable Care Act, and that makes for a disproportionate rate of uninsured residents in the state, says Pladsen. This is because, according to the Florida Medicaid Benefits site, only those who are pregnant, responsible for a child, living with a disability or have family members with a disability, or are 65 years of age and older qualify. Without some form of health insurance, there’s a barrier for physical and mental health care, she says.

Stewart, being diagnosed with high-functioning autism and bipolar disorder, is eligible for Medicaid in

I was curled up in a ball crying in the waiting room. The doctor told me he’s been sick before and never acted like that.”

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...they refuse to help the homeless to try and deter them from being here because they don’t want their tourism dollars affected.”

the state of Florida, but not everyone going through the homeless experience has similar resources.

Pladsen recalls a patient who fled the cold in Portland only to find fewer resources in South Florida.

“He heard it might be easier to get away from the bad weather,” she says. “He found out he couldn’t find any shelter or health care the entire six months he was there. So he just ended up coming back to Maine.

We hear that people can’t find services and get out of homelessness a lot in Florida.”

Eligibility for services in Florida doesn’t necessarily mean being taken seriously for those issues though.

Stewart’s hour-long bus ride to Lake Worth wasn’t her first attempt to treat her pneumonia. She had visited a hospital run by her caseworker, located within walking distance of her camp. The caseworker didn’t believe she was sick and wanted to admit her into a psychiatric ward instead, Stewart says.

“I was curled up in a ball crying in the waiting room,” Stewart says. “The doctor told me he’s been sick before and never acted like that.”

In response, she hopped on the Palm Tran, the local public transportation bus system. A hospital located only 11 miles and 17 minutes away by car took one hour and two buses to get to.

How the unhoused can prepare for the winter Stewart has also experienced homelessness in Kentucky and North Carolina. She’s stayed in homeless shelters everywhere she’s experienced homelessness, except for Florida. The nearby shelters to her like the Lewis Center aren’t welcoming in her experience.

In Louisville, Kentucky, she says you can’t walk more than three blocks without finding another place offering meals to the homeless.

She theorizes Florida’s lack of services has a lot to do with the tourism driven economy in the state.

“They have all of these tourists coming down and don’t want eyesores in the community,” Stewart says. “So they refuse to help the homeless to try and deter them from being here because they don’t want their tourism dollars affected. In other states there actually is more help for the homeless.”

Others living through the homeless experience in Florida have similar criticisms and tell the Homeless Voice the same. One Broward County man said the

last time he stayed at a shelter it was infested with bed bugs. So now he opts to sleep in his car.

Stewart has learned more than a few lessons since the last time she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She’s since been vaccinated for pneumonia, COVID-19 and the flu.

As someone who’s experienced homelessness on and off for 16 years, she advises to never keep wet clothing or blankets, but acknowledges that’s tough to do in a rainy climate.

Palm Beach State College offers a homeless exemption program, in which Stewart has enrolled and already graduated with an associates degree. That gives her the ability to also qualify for low-income student resources on campus like Panther’s closet, a thrift store where all items are only one dollar for students. She’s able to purchase winter clothing like sweaters, long pants and long sleeve shirts there.

Years ago, Stewart was assigned a lawyer because she had to give her children up for adoption. She and the lawyer stay in touch and on occasion she receives meals, blankets and other gifts from her.

But these problems are bigger than a few blankets and dry clothes.

Pladsen recommends cities look into winter planning resources from organizations like HUD. To her, the major issue noticed by the unhoused sources in this story is that shelters attempt to operate on their own.

There needs to be a healthcare provider partnered with the shelters, she says.

States, cities and municipalities do have what’s called Continuums of Care: a program that helps fund shelter systems and federally-supported housing, among other efforts like organizing the point-in-time count.

Pladsen uses Sulzbacher in Jacksonville, Florida as an example for what shelters in South Florida should model themselves after. Sulzbacher was founded in 1995 with the mission that, “homeless persons need and deserve more than just a meal and a bed to end their homelessness.”

Sulzbacher took the Continuum of Care approach to use funding for three entities: housing, income, and healthcare.

Pladsen says to better serve communities, Continuum of Cares must bring together the intersection of health and housing to help people get out of the cycle of homelessness.

“We’re not going to address this complex challenge with one single solution,” Pladsen says. “We really need all hands on deck to acknowledge this isn’t working.”

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