Digging through my archives I found this email I wrote to a bunch of people two years ago. This email was basically talking about a homeless woman I came to know back in 2005. Though I’ve not seen her since late December of 2005; I often wonder if she is doing better economically, socially, and mentally. I decided to turn this email into a column and I edited it only so that it better reflects the present.

Many who know me, know that I’ve become a serious reader. I’m usually found at the library, or until it closed, the Barnes and Noble in Hartsdale, NY. On a Sunday afternoon two years ago, as I was strolling into B & N to do my usual leisure reading, I encountered someone sitting at the table who after talking to them found out they were a story right out of the pages of the books I read.

I’m a non-fiction and current affairs type of reader. The books I read often talk about our current economic situation and how we are suffering to acquire healthcare coverage, medication, education, social justice, and jobs. It can often get partisan and political in nature, but talking to this woman I realized how the things we have a right to, go beyond any partisan boundary.

Barbara was sitting across from me reading. She was very polite, and by seeing my laptop assumed I was here to do some work. She asked me about what I did for a living, I said currently I’m looking for work and I’ve been going on interviews. She told me that she too was also looking for work. Barbara had been laid of from her job earlier in 2004. By her own description she was fifty-nine years young. She spoke about the upcoming interview she was going on for an administrative assistant position. Barbara told me how hard it had been just to find a job that would pay her enough, just to cover her cost of living in Westchester County.

She talked about the temp jobs she had been working which only paid her seven or eight dollars an hour. Barbara missed working in the city. She once was a consultant for a bank and was laid off a few months after 9/11. The cost of housing had gotten so high that for a while Barbara would commute from Albany to New York City for her job. To her the capitol buildings in Albany represented a facade, it hid what was going on in the city itself. She talked about the situation of Albany and how it too cried out for economic relief.

I interjected for a moment to tell her about where I had grown up in NYC. I told her about the conditions of the housing projects in Yonkers I recently came across when canvassing for a local campaign in the ‘04 cycle. I spoke of how angry I had become. I felt that people deserved better. We both then agreed that we cannot always put the blame on society. She said those housing projects did not start out in the failing condition they are in now. She said “that no matter where you are, you are not far enough from a bar of soap, and a cloth”. She mentioned that ammonia had always been “affordable”. I told her that she was correct and that part of the way to begin to help people is to show them that they must respect and value what they have. Even if you are not in the income bracket you wish to be in you should value where you live while working for better. We as a society must also ensure that people who are determined, have a chance to succeed no matter the background they come from. We must help people who are willing to help themselves. So far, personally I feel the weight of the problem still lies with the local, state and national government. I’ve encountered tons of people ready to work and learn, but are truly lacking the opportunities.

Barbara was upset, she talked about how so many people like her were suffering. She said that after college this was not “the plan”. She questioned why we were spending billions of dollars in Iraq when we were not even taking care of our own in this country. She is originally from the mid-west and considered herself to be a “worker- bee” and not just a “paper-pusher”. She wondered how an affluent county like Westchester and a state like New York could allow people to go on living this way.

Barbara did not place all the blame on the president, I tried to talk to her about what his tax cut scheme had done to make the situation worse. She said that this problem had been going on way before Mr. Bush ever stepped into the White House. I did not ask her what she thought of the current occupant of the Governor’s Mansion which was George Pataki at the time. Barbara was a proud person, I could see that in her eyes. She was independent and tough. She did not like taking hand outs. So it was to my surprise when I heard that she was also homeless.

She’s been fighting for a job and affordable housing. In her own words she wants real affordable housing. She said that someone told her that she had high standards because she did not want to live with cockroaches and other vermin. Barbara has been living in her car because of the condition of some of the shelters in Westchester County. When I originally wrote this piece, she was writing to the District Attorney (then DA Pirro) to plead with the District Attorney’s office to take a look into the activities that go on in these shelters. Barbara fears the criminal and drug user element of some of these shelters, she’s already had things stolen from her in the past.

Barbara is one of the people who needs the help, and wants to help themselves. The question I ask of the people of this county and of this state is, how do we lift these people up? I have come to the realization that when one suffers, we all suffer in the long run. There are those that subscribe to the rugged individualism theory. They say it’s every man or woman for themselves. What they fail to realize is, when you don’t help those in poverty, they often resort to means that they initially thought they would never come to. As a society we are only as strong as the weakest link. Our middle class has gotten so tightly squeezed that it will produce more Barbara’s. After all as the new cliche goes “you first need the bootstraps before you can begin to pull yourself up.” Whatever it takes we must address the problem of poverty and the problems of those in the middle class or we all fail in the long run. Barbara said that “the people put elected officials in office to work for them”, “if they don’t then we the people must take them out of office”. While there are those office holders who fight the good fight, how many of them don’t?

As the months passed, Barbara eventually found a temp job in an office in Tarrytown. Before that she even did a temporary stint at Home Depot. She still lived out of her vehicle however. When I last saw her in December she was headed to the One Stop Employment center in White Plains, NY. As time passed I realized that possibly Barbara also suffered from a mental issue as well. But that is not surprising and it does not mean that she is any less deserving of a new deal.