Shams DaBaron believes that the solution to homelessness is housing. “I’ve had to advocate all my goddam life against the city,” he told elach. “There are ways to establish that everyone is afforded a decent home.”
Shams DaBaron was born in 1969 and grew up in the South Bronx. When he was two years old, he entered the foster-care system, where he and his siblings bounced from home to home—some of them supportive, others dysfunctional—for a decade. These were the nineteen-seventies, or, as DaBaron says, the “gang years” of New York City. In his neighborhood, there were the Black Spades, the Savage Nomads, the Peace Makers. That period was also the dawn of the hip-hop era.
Last week, I called DaBaron to get his thoughts on the early days of the Adams administration, and the prospects for getting more help to some of the New Yorkers who need it most. DaBaron said that, except for the use of police officers during sweeps, he and Adams agreed on nearly everything. He gave Adams a lot of credit for listening to him and others with firsthand experience.
I agree with the Mayor when he says—because I say it, and I’ve been saying it—that the streets are not a home, the subways are not a home. I’ve lived in all of these environments. A tent is not a home. A home is a home. What we want to do is get people from off of the streets, into housing.I believe that. Although, I got more dignity sleeping in a tent or on a park bench than in a congregate shelter. Let’s be clear on that. I would never advocate for someone to end up in a congregate shelter.
Safe havens and stabilization beds are basically low-barrier places, where there are less restrictions—in many cases, there’s no curfew. And they have medical professionals on site, substance-abuse professionals on site, programming. Not everything has to be a group meeting, or an A.A. meeting. There’s recreational programming, therapeutic programming that can have you engaged while you’re working on housing and getting housed. And that prepares you for housing.
The issue is obviously a lot bigger than just street homelessness, but that’s so much the focus of the city government, the press, and the public right now. And the problem I have with that is, this is talking about Black and brown people. Ninety per cent of us in those shelters. And probably the same figure in those streets. This is how anti-homeless becomes anti-Blackness. I am not going to let these narratives continue.
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