“These are powerful American stories,” is how Susan C. Greenfield, an English professor at Fordham University, describes the collection of profiles in her new book, Sacred Shelter: 13 Journeys of Homelessness and Healing. Greenfield gathered together the narratives of 13 individuals who share the painful and isolating experience of having been homeless in New York.

South Bronx native Dennis Barton, 68, spent years living on the city’s streets. He explained, “My reason for doing [Sacred Shelter] was one, to try to give people an idea of what it’s like to be homeless. And two, to help change some of the perceptions of the people you see on the street.”

Adding “Hopefully this way you are educating people, so that they can start looking at ways to address the problem. And not by lip-service, but by actions.”

The Bronx is home to the highest amount of shelters in the city, with the occupants being predominantly black. According to the Coalition for the Homeless, 58 percent of individuals in city shelters are African American, while 31 percent are Hispanic.

The disproportionate amount of black and Hispanic shelter residents in the city doesn’t surprise Barton, who is black, and who believes there is a direct correlation between drug abuse in communities of color and the growing number of homeless. Barton, who himself, spent years struggling with drug addiction and time spent in and out of jail, said the city’s heroin epidemic will exacerbate its homelessness issue.

“Yes, there is a direct correlation between drugs and homelessness,” Barton said. “The people are now addicted to a drug and they may be ignoring other facets of their life, like paying rent, buying food, taking care of business, taking care of the normal business of life.”

Drug abuse is just one prevalent experience shared by many of the narrators in Greenfield’s book. Nearly every story documents some form of trauma, sometimes communal violence or sexual abuse that predates homelessness. However, Sacred Shelter isn’t wholly about the tragic reality of not having a home. All of the individuals share a story of redemption and reciprocity, which Greenfield explains is an experience that is also uniquely American. “They are also American stories in that these individuals are heroic,” she said.

The subjects of Sacred Shelter have all participated in a life skills empowerment program, established in 1989 through New York Catholic Charities. The program centers individual healing around community leadership, faith, and sharing the story of one’s life.

One of the book’s narrators, James Arthur Addison, explains, “You never know what people have gone through in their life to bring them down. How can we say we love each other, if we don’t know each other’s pain?”

Barton graduated from the New York Catholic Charities Education Outreach Program in 2002, and now lives in an apartment in Brooklyn.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.