Partnership For The Homeless Seeks Volunteers, Shelters
BY LINDA J. WILSON

City shelters throughout the five boroughs house some 32,000 people every night, Elana Shneyer, shelter and community coordinator for the Partnership for the Homeless, told the Community Board 1 district cabinet last Thursday. "The level is the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s," she said. She added that on any given night, fully three-quarters of the clients of city shelters for the homeless are working families with children. An increasing number of senior citizens age 55 and over are also finding themselves in homeless shelters.

New York City's shortage of affordable housing is a major factor in the increasing use of shelters by working poor and senior citizens instead of the stereotypical alcohol and substance abusers and mentally ill. "The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Queens is $1,000 a month," she told the cabinet, which met in the Kaufman Astoria Studios commissary. "Fully 25 percent of a family's monthly income can go for housing costs. That people are one paycheck away from being homeless is not a clich-it's the simple truth."

The Partnership for the Homeless through the Emergency Faith Shelter Network supervises 400 shelters throughout the city, 23 of which are in Queens, Shneyer said. The Queens shelters, with the exception of the Salvation Army shelter at 9023 161st St. in Jamaica, are housed in churches. Typically, clients, whom Partnership and Network personnel refer to as guests, enter the system through a drop-in center, where three meals a day, showers, clothing, medical and psychiatric screening and treatment, substance abuse counseling, case management and recreational facilities are available. The drop-in center also tracks where guests are sent nightly. After processing, which includes screening for tuberculosis and substance abuse, guests are bused to a shelter for the night, arriving at about 8:15 p.m. They are served a meal and after cleanup, lights go out for the night at 10 p.m. Breakfast is served the next morning and the guests leave the shelter by 6:30 a.m. There are no drop-in centers in Queens, Shneyer noted.

Shneyer asked her hearers to promote the idea of volunteering in a shelter and seek out religious organizations with space for shelters that if possible can be open five nights a week. "Just 13 new volunteers can provide 1,000 nights of shelter," she said. "It costs a church or synagogue nothing to run a shelter, either. The city provides the beds and the food and will bring a building up to code, if need be." Volunteers, who have separate quarters in a shelter, are never left alone with shelter guests and at least three are on duty at a shelter every night. Shneyer can be contacted at 212-6453444, ext. 107.

On a related subject, Rebecca Lurie, director of the Consortium for Worker Education, described her organization's facilities and the opportunities it offers within Community Planning District 1. Among these is Artisan Baking Center, which trains young people for careers in food preparation. The Consortium also prepares aspirants for apprenticeships in the building trades unions and offers English as a Second Language and GED classes, all of which are work-related. Allied organizations and institutions include the East River Development Alliance and LaGuardia Community College.

Julio Melendez told the cabinet and audience that the New York City Fire Department seeks men and women from minority communities to file applications to take the next firefighter exam. Applicants must be between 17 and a half and 29 years of age at the beginning of the application period, which will begin some time this year. "We'll mail [applicants who file] free tutorial information," Melendez said. Applicants must also pass physical, emotional and psychological exams. More information is available at www.nyc.gov/fdny.

Melendez explained that the waiting period that elapses before the phone call advising an applicant that he is eligible to enter the NYFD training academy can vary, from a few months to some two years, depending on how the applicant scores on the exam. Be that as it may, Melendez encouraged his audience to tell prospective applicants about the upcoming exam. "Firefighter is the best job in the city," he declared.

Karen Cummings of the New York Organ Donor Network told the cabinet that merely signing one's driver's license will not guarantee that one's organs will be donated in case of sudden death, nor will having a health care proxy. "Even though a person signs the donor consent on the back of their driver's license, it's not a legal document. Health care proxies become invalid at death," she said. "The only way to make sure your wishes as a donor will be carried out is to sign up with the Organ Donor Registry," she said. "And you have to have that discussion with your family. Most donors die suddenly and the family has only hours to try to figure out what the decedents wanted. And we can't take transplants without the consent of the next of kin. Lots of people tell us, 'If we had two weeks or so to think it through, we'd probably agree to donating'. The problem is, they don't have two weeks. Once the organs begin to die, they're useless as donations."

Organs are desperately needed. "There are a lot of people waiting for transplants," Cummings said. "In New York City, the average wait for a kidney transplant is five and a half to seven years. Dialysis helps, but when you're connected to a dialysis machine three times a week, that's life- but it's not quality life." The New York Organ Donor Network can be reached at 646-291-4444.