Public Employee Press

Homeless no more

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

DeNorval Parks lives in a neat home with copies of Ebony magazine on the table, curtains at the windows and snacks for his sons. But life was very different in 1999. A neighbor called: His three children were alone and their mother was gone.

Parks, a Dietary Aide in Local 420, rushed from Elmhurst Hospital to find his boys, then ages 3, 2 and eight months old, alone in their mother’s Bronx apartment. Puzzled, Elijah, 3, said, “I’m hungry, Daddy.”

Heartbroken and angry, Parks called the police and moved with his children into the cramped three-bedroom house in Corona where his mother, grandmother and several other family members lived.

“At first we slept on a couch and the floor,” Parks said. He found two small cots and a crib for the baby, Ahmuad, who was born with sickle cell anemia. Then the landlord sold the house. The extended family split up. Parks and his sons were suddenly homeless.

He packed up the kids and a duffle bag “with a toothbrush, Pampers, a couple of sheets and a change of clothes,” and went to the Emergency Assistance Unit, the entranceway to the city shelters.

Sheltered
He became part of the newest group of homeless people — working-class American families. More than 36,000 people sleep nightly in city shelters, and almost half are children. Parks picked up his increased parental responsibilities, dropped his college classes and held onto his job. Last year, he landed an apartment and self-published their story in a book entitled “Sheltered.” Parks’ journals, poems, and straight talk detail life “as a single dad raising sons in New York City’s turbulent shelter system.”

“It was hell,” Parks recalled. “I needed help, but not too many wanted four black males living as their neighbor.” Real estate agents and supers misled him or never called back.

“I dreaded going through the shelter system,” Parks said. He describes the endless lines of destitute people, mostly Black women, Latinas and their children; caseworkers and long waits in huge holding rooms; hungry children and meals of microwaveable burgers, fruit cocktail, and milk; violence, depression, resignation and, for Parks, hope.

After long days at EAU, the homeless board buses to temporary shelters. Parks was assigned a sparse room in an empty apartment so cold he and his children slept in their clothes. His son’s sickle cell disease did not expedite their case. Parks used vacation time to care for his children when they got sick.

By the time Parks confided in his DC 37 union rep, he said, “I was deep into the system by then. I wanted a Section 8 apartment and I believed I could do it on my own.”

To a great degree he has, accepting only shelter, as he did not qualify for Food Stamps, Medicaid or financial aid. Since that time, DC 37 has opened the Municipal Employees Housing Program to assist members with housing and Section 8.

After more than two years in the city shelter system, Parks said, “It’s a wonderful sign to finally leave the system. I held out for a safer neighborhood and better schools from my sons. I hope my story inspires Black men to take care of their kids and step up.”

“Where did I find the strength to fight this draining, mind-boggling circus? I love and adore my boys. If I had to,” he said, “I’d do it all again because of L-O-V-E, plain and simple.”