Living on the Edge

A long fight to find Joe help

To aid the homeless, you must navigate a maze of agencies

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Second of two parts.
In the predawn darkness on a lonesome January day this year, Long Island Coalition for the Homeless volunteers were out amid a cold snap so harsh that it numbed hands and froze eyelashes, scouring the streets for the homeless. Greta Guarton was among them.

As the nonprofit group’s executive director, Guarton takes great pains to ensure that the organization’s Point in Time Summary, a survey that estimates the number of homeless people in Nassau and Suffolk counties, is as accurate as possible. It’s a trying task.

“The under-counted are the people we find on the street,” Guarton said. “This portion of the homeless requires that we actually find them, speak to them, and that they admit that they are homeless and will not be going to a shelter.”

The count also includes individuals and families who are in emergency shelters and transitional housing for the homeless.

When the last survey was conducted on Jan. 22, Guarton spoke to 24 people living on the street. They were cold, desperate and lost. “At 6:30 in the morning, I was certain the people I saw were homeless, but not a single one would admit it,” she recalled.

According to Guarton, the homeless are reluctant to admit that they live on the street for a number of reasons. One is mental illness. “A lot of people living on the street with mental illness can’t manage emergency housing, which is the first level of help before permanent housing,” she explained. “Their mental illness may cause them not to be able to manage being in a large space with others, as they would be in a shelter.”

The homeless are often paranoid, and distrust Guarton’s motives when she questions them for the survey, she said. “Some have probably gone to [the Nassau County Department of Social Services] and maybe weren’t eligible [for benefits],” she added, “or they have drug problems, and some have pets, which are not permitted in shelters.”
Unlike in New York City, Guarton said, relatively few of Long Island’s homeless actually live on the street. Rather, they live in abandoned cars or the woods.

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