Counting the Homeless

At 10 o'clock on a Monday night I get off the train at Rockaway Boulevard, the fifth-to-last stop on the A train, in Ozone Park. I'd been meaning to volunteer for a while, so when I heard the city was doing a homeless census, I figured it was a good opportunity: one night out of my life. The thing's supposed to go on until 4 in the morning. Manhattan had too many volunteers, which is how I ended up in Queens.

After a few cold blocks, I arrive at the training center, an elementary school cafeteria. About 40 volunteers are there, and we're given a quick explanation as to what's going on. This is the HOPE program's second year, started by Mayor Bloomberg in 2004. Groups of volunteers will walk-and the woman in charge stresses walking, no driving-around designated areas, asking anyone they come across if they are homeless. We're supplied with maps of our walking routes and a stack of one-page surveys we fill out whenever we talk to someone.

If someone is homeless, we try to get them to a shelter. The woman speaking asks if there are any questions. I ask her why we're doing the census on a Monday night rather than, say, Friday or Saturday. She shakes her head and smiles at me. "That's the night they've always chosen to do them," she says.

My group is short; it's only myself and a 40-year-old African man. I go up to the organizers to see what the deal is. That's when I find out that we're one of the groups that's getting a police escort. I don't think to ask why we would need one. Once I'm in my partner's car, he turns and says to me, "Do you know, my friend, which area we are going to?" I take a closer look at our walking maps. The first one starts on Pennsylvania Avenue, south of Atlantic. We're being sent back into Brooklyn. To East New York. He starts his car with a determined look on his face. He says, "But nothing's going to happen to us."

Normally, I avoid East New York in the daytime. Now here I am parked on Liberty Avenue at 1 a.m. in a white Toyota, waiting for a police escort. I get out of the car, and the night wind hits me full in the face. I can think of any number of reasons why I don't want to leave the car. But we get going, the police, myself and my partner, out to ask everyone we see if they're homeless.

The first people we come across are four guys hanging around the corner store-in February. But I felt obliged to try HOPE's system at least once, and the officers at my back embolden me. I approach a squat guy with a crooked eye and camouflage jacket. His small friend with a big neck tattoo stares straight ahead and tries to pretend like a white guy with three police officers didn't just roll up.

I start reading from the survey sheet: "Hello, my name is (Steve) and I am a volunteer for the City of New York?" I get to the second question, "Would you like to participate?" "Naw, man." I check off the box, note the time and get the hell out. Everyone involved is happy to see us move on.

I announce to the group that I don't intend to be doing that any more. If someone is pushing around some soda cans, then I'll talk to them. Otherwise, I'll leave them be. One of the officers rolls his eyes. He says, "You're not going to find any homeless out here."

He's right. After the corner store and a fried-chicken joint, this neighborhood is empty. Concrete walls mounted with barbed wire stretch whole blocks, fencing in school bus depots and heavy industry. Most of the houses we pass are either burned out or abandoned. If there are any homeless, they're in there, and we're not supposed to enter any private space. We finish the route without running into anyone else, homeless or not. We pull out the next map. The police officer looks it over.

"That shouldn't take too long," he says. "That's just housing projects."

Actually, the three remaining routes all cover housing projects. We see one or two people moving from building to building, but for the most part, it's too cold and it's too late for anyone to be outside. Around 2, it starts snowing. It makes the streets look peaceful.

People have begun reinvesting in this neighborhood. There are rows of nice houses with cars under car-covers out front; smaller two- and three-family townhouses, the new kind of public housing the city's been rolling out. Even the older, larger complexes are in good shape, without graffiti. There are a lot of are police officers. It seems as though every other car that drives by is either a cop car or one of the vans. NYPD has the neighborhood on lockdown. It makes me feel safe, but the few people we do pass, not one of them even looks in my direction, with the police beside me.

We finish up at 3, having discovered zero homeless people in East New York. Back at the cafeteria, the organizers tell my partner and me that it's good we didn't find anyone. That logic hadn't occurred to me when I was walking around in circles in the snow, but now it makes sense.

I hitch a ride back to Manhattan, happy for the heater and reassuring myself that I did something good for once, even if it was ultimately fruitless.