Inside A Men's Homeless Shelter

Steven is wearing a forest green, pullover sweater and dark denim, loose-fitting jeans. He s its near a round wooden table, glancing from the village streets beyond the double doors in front of him to his hands and then to the men sitting around him.

He is 27 years old and has been member of the Bloods gang since 1998. He has been recently paroled from jail after a five-year conviction on burglary charges. Prior to his time in jail, he said slept outdoors. He didn’t want the other guests to hear details, so he scribbled on paper that he has slept in the bathroom of a Checker’s, a fast food restaurant, in the entrance of a Pathmark supermarket and in a friend’s backyard.

Tonight, Steven is sleeping at Pax Christi Hospitality Center, a men’s emergency housing shelter in uptown Port Jefferson, adjacent to Long Island Railroad station.

Pax Christi Hospitality Center is the only men’s homeless shelter in Suffolk County. It’s open 24 hours, 7 days a week for those 16 and older who are in need of emergency housing. The men come for a variety of reasons: some have been paroled from prison, others have their lost apartments and have been evicted from their homes, some are battling drug or alcohol addictions and a growing number have lost their jobs.

Typically, “guests,” as the staff calls the men who stay in the shelter, remain in Pax Christi for 48 hours before they either move to longer-term housing programs or sober houses. The only cases in which the center houses men on a longer basis is if they have mental health issues. The center tries to get these individuals housing where their health conditions can be better cared for.

“Every day is a surprise,” said Kathleen Martin, a counselor at the shelter.

The director of Pax Christi, Stephen Rabeno, said that Father Frank Pizzarelli, a local priest, opened the center in July 1991. Father Frank is also the executive director for the non-profit organization Hope House Ministries, the organization under which Pax Christi works . The center opened a year after homeless men were found dead near the train station. Rabeno said the shelter was established “to provide a service for the homeless” to stop this tragedy from happening again.

Steven, who chose to give only his first name, said he wouldn’t be in the shelter if he wasn’t on parole. He is on parole until 2014. And by the following Tuesday, Steven will no longer be a guest at Pax Christi.

The day after Steven came to Pax Christi, he met with an advocate, one of the counselor s who meet with guests to discuss what services they need and where they can find programs to house them for a longer stay. By 4 p.m., there were six men already checked into the center. They strolled between the small, narrow lobby by the main entrance to the television room or went out to smoke by the back of the building.

Under Pax Christi rules, guests are to abide by a 9 p.m. curfew, shower by 10 p.m. and have no possession of alcohol, drugs, or drug paraphernalia. If they do, they are turned away. N o gu est is permitted to the center if they are high or intoxicated and they must not engage in violence of any kind with the staff, other guests or volunteers.

“What I give out in terms of politeness is what I expect in return,” said Robert Conelly, a counselor who works the weekend shift. “For the most part, people try to stay polite.” Connelly said he has not had problems with guests in the two and a half years he has worked at Pax Christi. He is currently enrolled in the social work masters program at Stony Brook University.

But Port Jefferson Constable Wally Tomaszewski said he has received complaints from residents about the men who are not admitted to the center.

Tomaszewski said the men who are not permitted to Pax Christi due to intoxication remain in town. “They stay in Port Jefferson when they are not allowed in Pax...they have a tendency to urinate in public.” he said. “Their judgment is impaired in terms of their conduct in public… we [the village police] have to deal with them.”

In response, the Associate Director of Pax Christi, Stephen Brazeau, said the center was opened because there was a homeless population already in Port Jefferson and it does not contribute to the number of homeless people in the village.

The latest figures from 2007 show an increase in homeless throughout Long Island. The Long Island Coalition for the Homeless found there were 781 homeless people in Nassau County and 1,728 in Suffolk County.

Advocate Kathleen Martin came to the center more than ten years ago while she was in school for substance abuse counseling. When she first came to Pax Christi she worked as a group counselor for substance abuse and was later offered a full-time position.

“We’re supposed to be an emergency shelter but sometimes we’re more than that,” Martin said. “Nothing is written [in stone] here.”

Several of the counselors at Pax Christi started as interns or volunteers for the shelter while working for their degrees in social work or substance abuse counseling. Part of their salary is funded by a reimbursement from the county through the Social Services Department. Pax Christi receives this reimbursement based on how many guests they housed in a given year. The number of total guests that stayed in the shelter during one year will determine how much money it will receive for the next year. Rabeno said counselors are paid $12.33 an hour from the county and receive no health benefits. In addition to the reimbursement, Pax Christi sustains itself through fundraising programs and donations, as well as grants and contracts.

“We get paid per person, per bed,” said Rabeno” It’s not something that’s a block set o n a annual basis, it all depends on how many people we have that stay at the shelter.” The center is full to capacity during the winter almost every night.

In the past two years, Brazeau said he has seen a slight increase in guests who are unemployed. Clay, 38, said he once owned his own construction company, but lost it after a job-r elated accident shattered his right leg.

I’m a drug addict,” Clay said. For Clay, his experience with drugs started at an early age. He lived in a detention center after his mother gave him and five other children over to child protective services. He was 11 years old when he first smoked marijuana and move d on to “dust” and heroin when he was 15.

Clay, who chose to give only his first name, was recently asked to leave the apartment he was sharing with a friend in Mastic Beach when he couldn’t afford pay rent after another work-related accident. During his recovery, Clay said he became addicted to the pain medication.

He has several relatives in Long Island, but said they don’t want him around when he is high. “They don’t like when I abuse my meds,” Clay said. “Bottom line is, if I didn’t get high, I wouldn’t be here.”

With nowhere else to go, Clay came to Pax Christi for a place to stay. He heard about Pax from a friend while staying in another shelter. He said he is waiting for a bed to open in a sober house that offers inpatient assistance at Seafield Center in Westhampton.

A new guest arrives to Pax Christi on a recent Sunday afternoon. His name is Shea White and he has been kicked out of his apartment by his girlfriend because he is unemployed.

“I worked for a moving company, the work got slow, like, in the recession a year and half, two years ago,” said White, 36. “I’ve been unemployed that long.”

White said he learned about the center from a friend who stayed at Pax Christi after he was released from jail. White hopes that the center will help him get back on his feet. “Me, I’m a worker. I don’t like hand-outs,” White said.

By early the following week, the guests that Friday and Sunday won’t be in Pax Christi. Most will have moved on to other shelters. Whether or not they will remain homeless is uncertain. Only this is certain: they can find a shower, food and a bed at Pax Christi.

“It’s not home,” Clay said. “But it’s a place to stay.”