The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘It’s about human beings’
Homeless vigil memorializes 27 who lost their lives in Middlesex County
MIDDLETOWN — Already by 4 p.m., darkness had fallen on the shortest day of the year as 250 people quietly filed into The Church of the Holy Trinity on Main Street for the annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Vigil.
In the vestibule, they were met by a basket of multicolored river rocks, smooth to the touch, fitting easily in the palm. A note directed each visitor to choose one and save it until the end of the service Thursday.
The Rev. Dana Campbell began with a prayer. As she spoke, the mood was somber and the words she chose prompted many to weep. They used tissues to silently dab away the tears.
“Unite our voice in a call for shelter so that no man need ever lay down for the night on a wooden park bench because he has no home,” Campbell said.
“So that no woman need ever tuck her children into the back seat of her car because she has no home.
“So that no child need ever wonder, ‘Where will I feel safe?’ because he has no home.
“So that all those who wander and all those in need find the shelter and peace they seek,” Campbell told those gathered.
Her emotionally touching sermon was followed by a spirited rendition of “Lean on Me” by Kwamena and MaryAmma Blankson that easily shifted the mood to a brighter one.
“I just might have a problem that you’ll understand. We all need somebody to lean on …”
Natalie Mazzone, a researcher for the Youth Action Hub at the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, stood at the podium and began to speak.
The 21-year-old Middletown resident shared her story: a years-long bout of housing instability.
“It was a symptom of problems that were deeply in me and would take tremendous effort to dismantle — among them substance abuse, gender dyspho-
“No man need ever lay down for the night on a wooden park bench because he has no home.” Rev. Dana Campbell, Church of the Holy Trinity
“(I began) a cycle of couch surfing, sleeping in cars, or just staying up all night because I had no bed.” Natalie Mazzone, 21
ria and mental health,” said Mazzone. Her troubles began to manifest themselves while she was a teen.
“I would slowly and then not so slowly fall into a downward spiral,” she said of recreational drugs, then harder substances, and eventually rehab.
“Upon entering treatment for the first time and experiencing the clarity of mind that comes with sobriety, the fact of my gender dysphoria became even more evident to me and I knew I needed to transition,” Mazzone said. “That’s when I came out as transgender.”
During treatment, Mazzone said, she asked for housing that would accommodate her special needs but was denied. That refusal, she said, began “a cycle of couch surfing, sleeping in cars, or just staying up all night because I had no bed.” So she turned to drugs. Her mother, Mazzone said, was willing to help — with one condition. Mazzone couldn’t use drugs.
“That was the problem, I couldn’t stay clean,” she said, which led to a relapse that led her to sex work, stealing and not taking her medications.
“It isn’t easy to be vulnerable in front of so many people in such a personal way, but this is my story,” Mazzone said. “What is most important is it’s only one story. Seated today in this church are scores of individuals who have experienced homelessness, whose stories may be very different than mine. But they have the courage to stand and tell you their name,” she said.
As Mazzone took her seat in the pews, Lydia Brewster, assistant director for community services at St. Vincent de Paul in Middletown, invited all those touched by homelessness to stand and say his or her name. “It takes a tremendous amount of courage to do that. The good news is we have fewer voices than in past years,” Brewster said.
Then, in a meditative ceremony, two gentleman, holding long brass candle lighters, solemnly lit 27 white candles, one by one, for each of the homeless people who died in Middlesex County in 2017.
The Middlesex County Coalition on Housing and Homelessness was formed in 2007 with a mission to end chronic homelessness within 10 years.
In May, the state saw a 13 percent drop in the number of homeless people on the street or in shelters from the previous year and the lowest total homeless population recorded since 2007, according to data released by the coalition.
Surveyors identified 3,387 individuals experiencing homelessness — down from 3,902 in the previous year, the coalition reported.
Much has changed since Middletown’s annual service launched in 1990, Brewster said. “When it first started, all of us in the housing world, social services and political world, we all came, and there were 40 people if we were lucky, and it was a lot of political discussion about changing policy,” she said.
“We have changed the event by giving it to the people who have experienced homelessness. Instead of having it be about public policy, it’s about human beings now,” Brewster said.
Over the decades, the number of people touched by housing instability have grown to outnumber the policy makers.
“The people in the soup kitchen own it now, the people who have been there, who have walked in the shoes of homeless people,” Brewster said. “They know what it’s like — it’s a very different thing when it’s just sympathetic — but I’ve never been homeless and you may never have been either,” Brewster said.
“It was a group of largely providers and other concerned citizens: people who cared about homelessness, but it was a very small group,” said Howard Reid, chairman of the coalition. Now, the process is much more coordinated, he said.
“So that the person who is homeless is at the center of things rather than the bureaucracy,” Reid said. “In the past, if you were homeless, you often had to go to different agencies to see what they could offer and to hope you met the eligibility criteria they had.
The onus was on the individual, who was already burdened, he said.
“You could spend all of your time doing that, and if you don’t have a place to live, that’s a pretty hard thing to do,” he said.
“Now there’s a real front door to the system, and once you’re in it, you’re very quickly assessed and assigned resources that are appropriate to your needs,” Brewster said. “It’s not without complications — it’s a new system, everevolving
“We know who the homeless people are . ... Now we have a very sophisticated system of knowing who is homeless, for how long, who’s about to become chronic.” Lydia Brewster, assistant director for community services, St. Vincent de Paul in Middletown
— but it’s much more efficient than I thought it would be,” she said.
“We know who the homeless people are,” Brewster. “We used to come up with numbers out of the blue: sort of out of our self-sense. Now we have a very sophisticated system of knowing who is homeless, for how long, who’s about to become chronic,” she said.
The church grew quiet as Sue Murphy began to sing the first few lines of “Silent Night” in a voice that rose and fell in strength and tenderness. As the song moved along, and many of those gathered joined in, quietly singing the lyrics, the mood in the church changed to one of congregation.
At the conclusion, at least 100 people stood in line to place their chosen stone upon a table lit with candles at the front of the sanctuary. Each, including several children, paused for a moment to say a prayer for those without a home.
The evening was a turning point — one of hope — not only because each day ahead would be a moment longer and brighter but one of optimism that 2018 would be another year of decline for those without a home.