The HOPE Count
On Monday I participated in New York City’s annual count of unsheltered homeless individuals. Our team of five, including two West Point students who’d been bused down to volunteer, canvassed some 16 blocks between midnight and 4 a.m., asking everyone we encountered whether they had a place to sleep that night, and if they would like help. A few people laughed – we told people we were supposed to ask everyone, but the implication that we thought they might be homeless was comical to the briefcase-toting executives heading home, and to the jovial beer-drinking group of Eastern European-sounding men who had perhaps just gotten off work. Between moments of levity were scenes of profound despair. We passed a group of five white people scattered on the sidewalk with their dirty blankets and personal detritus, faces scabby and gaunt, with the prematurely withered air of drug addicts. They told us they were staying there for the night and no, they didn’t want to go to a shelter. We