- [Interviewer] Laura.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] We're in Times Square.
I almost, most people probably don't even see you.
I almost didn't see you, you're homeless.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Tell me about it.
- Well, I've been out for about two years now.
I was in a domestic violence relationship
and I got four head injuries.
I got really confused and I couldn't think straight
and I couldn't make decisions.
It causes you to really foggy thinking
and hard to make decisions and stuff like that.
So I already had a brain injury, so I was having trouble.
I ended up trying to get away from him.
And I just had to finally, 'cause it was so bad.
The thinking was so bad that I just finally one day
I had to just walk out and leave,
and I left all my stuff and I was unable to get it back
because when you don't have a home, nobody really helps you.
So--
- [Interviewer] Now you're--
- Police don't really help, I mean,
'cause I was leaving my home, so--
- [Interviewer] And you told me you're safe now?
- I'm not, I mean, I'm outside.
So I'm not really but--
- [Interviewer] You're safe from--
- I'm safe from him, yes.
- [Interviewer] Right, right, right.
- Yeah, and he's clear across the country.
He's in LA, I'm here.
- [Interviewer] Now, you're just telling me,
we're pretty far, but to go to the bathroom,
you gotta walk all the way to Penn Station.
- Yeah, it's about four blocks away.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, but they're big blocks.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] I just walked up from--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a little quite always
and I also can't take my stuff down with me--
- [Interviewer] Right.
- So I have to have somebody watch my stuff
and I usually have to give them money
even if I don't have it.
I gotta figure out how to get them a dollar or something
like that to watch my stuff for me.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- So that I can go to the bathroom
'cause I can't take all my stuff with me.
So, I end up holding it a lot.
- [Interviewer] Oh my God!
- It's really--
- [Interviewer] I'm so sorry.
And you're out here with your dog, beautiful dog.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Is there anybody helping you?
- I don't ask for help, but I don't wear, hold the sign
so they don't usually help if you don't--
- [Interviewer] What I meant, like social services.
- Oh no, I tried with one organization
called Breaking Ground, but they're not really doing much.
That's about the only time I've been approached
for getting help.
I've gotten sick and one thing that concerns me
is that there's no concern for that virus in this area.
They don't, in LA they're putting people
into hotels and stuff.
FEMA is actually funding it for homeless people
to go into hotels.
And that's a federal organization--
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- It has to be--
- [Interviewer] So you tried a little here too but they--
- It has to be a nationwide program.
- [Interviewer] I agree.
- So I don't understand where the funding is going
because I think they're getting funding here,
they're just not putting it
into the homeless people because--
- [Interviewer] I don't know it's all a mess.
- The government gives us--
- [Interviewer] It's all a mess.
- Yeah.
- I know up the west side, they were putting some people
in hotels and then people are complaining
and I mean, a good friend of mine who is a doctor here
told me that there's 130 vacant hotel rooms here,
130,000, excuse me.
- What, why?
I don't understand that.
- [Interviewer] Well, there's lack of tourism,
and this is happening everywhere.
So where'd you sleep last night?
- I slept at a, it's a kind of a subway station
It's above ground but the heat comes up
from there during the nighttime, so it's warm.
So I was able to sleep there.
- [Interviewer] How do you survive out here?
- I don't know, I just do (laughs).
- [Interviewer] Well, you still have a good spirit.
- (laughs) Yeah, I mean, I don't know,
I have brain damage, so...
- That's funny, but that's no excuse,
I mean, I don't wanna say excuse, but--
- I mean, like I just, it doesn't...
Things don't affect me I guess
the same way that they would other people.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- So I don't, (indistinct) understand
as much as other people do, I guess.
And I don't know.
I mean, I have food stamps so I can get food
and that's pretty much all you need.
Is a place to sleep and food, so...
But I don't know, I'm gonna travel around
a little bit I think, 'cause I'm not really sure
where to go right now.
I don't feel very safe in the country
the way the country's acting right now.
I just don't, outside you're so vulnerable.
You're you know, whether you're participating
in whatever people are fighting about or not,
you're still vulnerable.
I choose not to be in violence anymore.
So I don't wanna be in anybody's fight, you know?
- [Interviewer] okay.
I mean, there's protests going by,
thankfully a peaceful protests.
- Oh, right now, yeah.
But some of them, I don't know about here, but in LA
they call it a peaceful protest,
but they're stomping down the road
and they're just all fired up and that's not peaceful.
That's not what peaceful means.
- [Interviewer] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It's stirring something up and--
- [Interviewer] Well, I can see
how you would feel unsafe out here.
Plus being a woman by yourself--
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Even though you have a dog.
- And I just listened to a man for 45 minutes,
scream at me for being homeless today.
- [Interviewer] What?
- Yeah, and the police had to come up and get involved.
But the police were nice about it actually.
They said to me, they just told me,
"Don't waste your time on him 'cause he's a jerk."
- [Interviewer] Well, he was upset
because you were homeless?
- Yeah, and he was screaming at me and (indistinct)
for everyone here saying, "She eats garbage."
It's not true, I don't eat garbage.
I buy my food.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, I mean--
- I have food stamps.
- [Interviewer] I would not know,
it's only because I do this
and I'm very sensitive to seeing homeless people.
I mean, I would not have known you're homeless.
You're clean, your dog's--
- I'm actually not clean, I just look like I'm clean.
- [Interviewer] Well, you know what I mean?
Oh my gosh!
You're very honest, thank you.
You're very honest.
So this gentlemen was upset you're homeless,
but just wanting to complain and he didn't--
- Absolutely.
- [Interviewer] And he didn't do anything to help?
- He got the police's attention, no.
He was trying to get the...
He was first of all, he was freaking out about my dog.
Trying to say that...
My dog's laying here not doing anything, not hurting anyone.
And then he started screaming about my dog saying,
"That's a vicious dog."
And they wouldn't respond to that.
So then he started going on about how I'm begging for money
which I wasn't begging for money, I'm not.
Don't have a sign, I'm not sitting in a place
where we people really even notice me.
So I'm not actually trying to draw attention to myself.
And he just, for 45 minutes was screaming and...
- [Interviewer] I'm so sorry.
- It's hard sometimes that way
because they try to tear you down.
If you have a good disposition, it's not easy
because they're there, there's people in the public
that are there to make you feel bad for no reason.
Does it make any sense sometimes.
There's no law against being poor, but yet we're treated,
homeless people are treated worse than prisoners.
Prisoners get medical, prisoners they have rights,
prisoners can appeal the court.
We're not allowed to do any of that.
If we go into a shelter situation,
our rights are null and void.
We don't get any special privileges.
And I feel like that's wrong
because in, pretty much most every state,
as long as you go into a store and you buy anything,
you're paying taxes.
So I pay for all my stuff.
Myself, I'm paying taxes.
I paid for all of those rights
and I don't get to utilize them because I'm poor.
It doesn't make sense to me.
- [Interviewer] First off, there should not be poverty
and homelessness and is great country.
That's where, but then the big thing about my work
that people don't,
is I believe everybody should be treated the same.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] And it's just homeless people
that I help amplify the voice
but really behind the DNA and the belief of Invisible People
is that everybody should be treated the same.
- Yeah, we should absolutely have rights
like everybody else has rights.
I think that, and I mean,
to me it's more of a status,
like a status quo than it is a race issue anyways.
Is because when you're poor you have,
everything kind of gets...
You get treated less than other people
just for the fact that you're poor anymore.
It's ridiculous, everybody's gonna find a reason
to suffer other people though.
- [Interviewer] What would you want house people to know,
all these people probably a 100 people walked by us just now
and all that, you're sitting here homeless
throughout the day.
- Well, I would want them to stop judging people
for the position that they're in.
'Cause one, I don't do drugs, I have...
It's like the guy was commenting earlier today,
that was screaming at me,
and he was saying that my teeth are bad.
My teeth are bad because one, I take a medication
for seizures that causes your teeth to kind of rot out.
It decays your teeth.
I'm taking a medication that does that to me.
It's not because I'm doing drugs.
So don't assume that people are doing something
you don't know.
Most of the people that are out here,
women, most of the time
are coming out of domestic violence relationships.
And there's just not enough protection or enough ways
for them to get out and safely
and get their life started over again.
And the other side of it is it's a lot of men are out here
because they were in the military
and then they've served our country.
They tried to risk their lives for our protection
and we don't do any better for them,
then they just criticize them
and accuse them of being on drugs.
I don't know if they are or not.
I know I'm not and I get accused of it all the time.
So I just think that people,
and then there's a lot of them that have mental illnesses
and that's not a crime either.
It's not a crime to be mentally ill, it's--
- [Interviewer] Well, most people with mental illness
are in housing.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] They never end up homeless.
Most people that are addicted never ended up homeless.
If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- Housing for sure.
And to be treated like I was somebody,
like I wasn't, not to be treated like I'm,
or to be devalued.
(coughs) Sorry, I'm sick.
I guess, to be well too.
- [Interviewer] Have you been COVID tested?
- No, and I've even talked to somebody,
and that's supposed to be a homeless advocate (coughs)
and said, when are they, New York isn't doing anything to...
I've been to hotels here.
They aren't doing temperature checks,
they're not doing anything to prevent the spread of COVID.
- [Interviewer] Because, you know, do you have a fever
or you're just--
- Yeah, I've had a fever.
I have all the symptoms of it.
I've told, and I told--
- [Interviewer] Well, you should go--
- A person that was for homeless advocacy,
they don't care.
We're not, if I go in an ambulance,
the only way to get to the hospital is to walk there,
which I can't because I get lost really easy
because I have brain damage.
Or take an ambulance, if I take an ambulance,
I have to leave all my stuff behind.
I'm not willing to give up all my stuff
to go get tested for everybody else's benefit.
- [Interviewer] Well, that's why a lot of people,
homeless people don't--
- There's a lot of other states that are setting up venues
all over the place to test for COVID.
You don't have to go to a hospital to go get it done.
New York's really failing the people
because I'm out here, there's children out here,
There's you know, I'm...
- [Interviewer] Well, when you join our support group,
you're on Facebook,
we'll try to navigate to get you to a clinic or something.
- (coughs) okay.
- [Interviewer] Anyways, Laura, it's been an honor
to get to know you a little.
- Thank you, it's been an honor too.
- [Interviewer] Thank you so much for talking to me.
- Thank you.
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