Homeless React to Death of a Fellow Homeless

The death of Grace, the homeless woman who died in East Village's Tompkins Square Park, created a serious wave of generosity and a feeling of family between the people of Tompkins Square Park.

Across the street in Tompkins Square Park, however, life is a bit more cheerful as dozens of homeless and needy New Yorkers line up for helpings of soup, bread, fruit, and vegetables that volunteers from The Bowery Mission are passing out. Men and women chat amicably, greeting familiar faces as they wait in the cold for the meal. One of those in line, who identified himself only as “El Presidente,” 75, says he used to sleep at The Mission’s headquarters on the Bowery every night. Now, he says, he mostly spends the nights around Tompkins Square Park with a small band of younger men. “They’re like my family,” El Presidente says. When asked about Grace, he scratches his head before conceding, “I don’t know her.” Disappointed, he asks for more physical detail, knowing that in the small Tompkins Square Park community, the likelihood of the two crossing paths was very high.

Leading Cause of Death: Homelessness

A woman was found dead under a scaffolding in East Village after being tended to by a fellow homeless person who found the body at midnight.

He returned to the church Sunday morning, he said, only to find that Grace would not wake up. He watched as emergency medical technicians told him she was dead, Tony said. “I just broke out crying,” he said. “The tears wouldn’t stop.” The Police Department had not released the woman’s name by Sunday night. The police said that she was in her 30s and that while the cause of her death was under investigation, the death was not being investigated as a crime.

Expansion of Homeless Shelters

The Homeless believe it to be a great decision. The neighbors believe it to be a horrible decision. What do you believe?

For decades, Test’s Barber Shop in Brooklyn has faced the Sumner Avenue Armory, a hulking castlelike building that towers over the modest four-story brownstones in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Through the storefront window, barbers watched the armory change from a bustling community center into a shelter for homeless men. The barbers have been there long enough to see that shelter change, too, from a dangerous place that warehoused hundreds of men in the 1980s to a quieter place, known as Pamoja House, with room for just 200 men. But the city is now considering doubling the capacity of the shelter, on Marcus Garvey Boulevard near Jefferson Avenue, making room for 400 men, a move that worries some neighbors and advocates for the homeless, and one that could face legal hurdles.

Freezing Their Lack-of Socks Off

They ask we attempt to ignore, they ask we attempt to ignore...but what happens when it's below freezing and we ignore some more?

The temperature fell to 13 degrees in Central Park on Saturday night and was expected to plummet to 4 degrees on Sunday night, the lowest temperatures expected this winter. (The last time it was colder was on Jan. 18, 2000, according to the National Weather Service.) Teams of outreach workers checked on street dwellers every two hours under the department’s “Code Blue” procedure, which goes into effect when the temperature or wind chill drops below freezing and is heightened when the readings fall below 20 degrees, according to Mr. Diamond.On those nights — Sunday was the 41st night that Code Blue had been invoked this winter — the department loosens its restrictions to attract those who would not normally sleep in shelters.

High Schooler lives in Homeless Shelter

Every day we go to school and believe everyone there is at least as happy as you or me but some of us aren't so lucky.

"Using the accepted social metrics of teenagers in this country, Thakane Masondo should have plenty of friends. She is in the second semester of her senior year at Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem. She plays lacrosse, belongs to the global history club and is the founder of a dance group that performed at the Apollo Theater. She has a playful sense of humor and a mischievous smile.The truth, though, is that Ms. Masondo does not have many friends — by choice. Having more, she reasons, would mean more people knowing her secret. “I live in a homeless shelter,” Ms. Masondo said. Tears appeared in her eyes as she revealed how she pretended to have a home to return to after school, a family to look after her. “I can’t really have any friends.”