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Do The Homeless Count? Census Taker Tries To Get Accurate Tally

Photo from Mary Kelly Hoppe

As the single mother of daughters Jane, center, and Maddy, right, Mary Kelly Hoppe says she knows how tenuous financial security can be.

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By MARY KELLEY HOPPE

Special to the Tribune

Published: March 14, 2009

Gloria is huddled against a wall at Kennedy Boulevard and Franklin Street on a postcard-perfect Thursday night, gazing up at a building where city lights cast dazzling images of birds of paradise against a stone wall.

"I think it means the stars," she whispers. "It also means airplanes. ... I think it's a rocket ship."

Gloria, 51, is new to Tampa, having left Atlanta and her family a month ago.

"The spirits gave me a thought about going to college here, and I wanted to get away so bad."

She spent $85 on a one-way bus ticket to the promised land, but it wasn't enough to outrun the terrible voices in her head.

"It's been terrible, sad and sickening," she tells me, adding that she was locked in a mental hospital for a time. Exactly where, Tampa or Atlanta, is unclear, much like her recollection of whether she has children. She can't remember.

I'm part of a team of 200-plus volunteers canvassing the county for the 2009 Hillsborough Homeless Count, a census conducted every two years to better understand the complex dynamics that send people to the streets. The count occurred in February.

Although the numbers from this year's census won't be finalized for another month, "based on what other communities nationwide are reporting, we're expecting at least a 10 percent increase," said Lesa Weikel, spokeswoman for the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County.

Here's a snapshot of who's out there:

•A single mother making minimum wage who loses the struggle to afford rent, child care, transportation and food.

•A family whose father suffers a debilitating illness and is unable to work.

•A woman who suffers from mental illness without the resources for treatment.

•An 18-year-old who ages out of the foster care system.

•A woman escaping an abusive relationship with nothing but the clothes on her back.

The people are real; they are the face of the homeless in Hillsborough County, a population approaching 10,000 men, women and children at last count. During the 2007 census, volunteers found:

•9,532 homeless people in Hillsborough County.

•47 percent were Caucasian, 32 percent black, 12 percent Hispanic.

•18 percent were veterans.

•18 percent suffer from mental illness.

Locally, according to the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County, there are enough services to help only 15 percent of homeless men, women and children.

Khadijah Rivera, a Muslim-American mother of five, feels it's her duty to "feed them for the sake of God. No reward do we ask." Every Friday, she coordinates a group of University of South Florida Muslim students that feeds 300 homeless people at two downtown locations. They don't just dispense food, they bring friendship and youthful smiles and something these forgotten Hillsborough County residents hunger for most: hope.

Sister Khadijah, as she calls herself, reminds me that not all people living on the streets are alcoholics, drug addicts or mentally unstable.

"I had a heart attack a few years back, and even with health insurance, I had to pay over $56,000," she says. "Imagine someone with a sick family member scrounging to pay the bills, giving up their home and possessions to save another's human life."

Saddest, she says, are the families and runaway teens.

"I've seen pregnant women living in domestic abuse shelters. We hide the homeless and deny their existence by not opening shelters, offering job training, counseling, affordable housing or providing enough food pantries." It's enough to make a thinking person wonder: Do the homeless count?

Joining us at this downtown feeding station are a half-dozen or more freshly-scrubbed faces, college students from Idlewild Baptist Church in North Tampa who feed the homeless here each Thursday. Like Khadijah, they are the unsung heroes who reach out to the huddled masses when others won't.

Larry And Trish's Story

Larry and Trish are wrapped up in each other's arms underneath a worn blanket. They came to the Tampa Bay area two months ago from Colorado to reunite with Trish's mother, whom she hadn't seen in 27 years.

"Two weeks into it, her mom's boyfriend ... kicked Trish in the mouth, ... knocked two teeth loose, but they won't come out," said Larry, who says he has been homeless since his parents discarded him and his brother and sister when he was 5 years old.

At the tender old age of 20, Larry has already fathered five children, who live with his grandmother in Wisconsin. Trish, 34, divulges little in our conversation, letting Larry talk for her. I learn that neither has been successful in holding down jobs: Larry boasts a rap sheet the size of a book; Trish says she has multiple personalities. They make do by holding a sign near the downtown exit from the interstate, bringing in $100 on a good day.

"One more thing," Larry calls out to me as I get to up to leave: "She's got three hellions inside her," pointing to Trish's swollen belly. They will soon be moving on. Someone tried to strangle Trish, so they plan to head west to California.

'Where There Is Despair'

Our worlds are light years apart, but like many of us living paycheck to paycheck, the financial worries are painfully real.

As a single, self-employed mother of two, one a freshman in college, the other a cash-starved teenager, the past year has been a sobering reminder of just how tenuous our safety net really is.

Or, as my friend Ron remarked to a homeless woman who asked why he cared: "I'm just one paycheck, one pill, one drink away from standing where you are."

As I am about to depart, Gloria asks me to pray for her. She begs me to ask Jesus to quiet the voices roiling inside her head. I promise I will, and she asks that I write down my favorite prayer. It's one I can recount in my sleep, I tell her - the prayer of St. Francis, the one my parents taught me, the one I've taught my girls - and the words wash over me like a cool river on a summer afternoon:

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy."

We send up our prayer, Gloria and I, into the cobalt blue sky, hoping someone is listening.

Mary Kelley Hoppe is a freelance writer and president of MKH Communications, a marketing and public relations firm that specializes in issues advocacy and nonprofit organizations.

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