Staten Island pastor welcomes homeless people into church amid coronavirus

Rev. Terry Troia refuses to be cowed by the coronavirus.

The Episcopal pastor and her 15 volunteers are helping more than 250 homeless people per day, using a loyal network of faith-based emergency shelters on Staten Island that she has cultivated for nearly 40 years.

It’s a relationship that has remained resilient during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic as most churches and houses of worship in the rest of the city shut down their emergency homeless programs in March when the contagion started to spread.

“For years there was no place for homeless to go to on Staten Island,” said Troia, 62, who heads up the non-profit, interfaith Project Hospitality. “But necessity really is the mother of invention because since 1984, we have forged a strong relationship with these churches.”

Troia’s organization runs the city’s “drop-in” center for homeless in the borough. It provides meals and showers, and drives homeless clients — most of them disabled — to congregational shelter beds every night. For homeless clients who have coronavirus symptoms, they find medical services and often spend the night at the shelter facilities in case of medical or other emergencies.

“It defies logic that the other four boroughs cannot function the way Staten Island does,” said Peter Gudaitis, executive director of New York Disaster Interfaith Services, a non-profit that oversees 34 shelters in houses of worship throughout the city, including five on Staten Island.

Gudaitis told The Post that all of the churches he works with in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx shut down their emergency beds for the homeless after city-run referral agencies — known as drop-in centers — in those boroughs stopped sending homeless clients their way over the last month.

“Most of our congregational shelters closed because the drop-in centers are not feeding clients to the shelters,” he said.

“We are trying to get a read on whether we can get these congregational shelters in other boroughs to open up again because we are seeing a lot more homeless on the streets,” Gudaitis said.

Typically, drop-in centers are run by non-profits who contract with the city to help the homeless with emergency services. The centers work with a host of other non-profits, including congregations, that provide temporary shelter.

“All of our Drop-In Centers remain open 24/7 citywide, in all five boroughs, and able to refer folks who don’t have a place to stay to shelter,” said city Department of Homeless Services spokesman Isaac McGinn.

But an activist who works with the homeless told The Post that outside Staten Island, the non-profit contractors who run drop-in centers have broken down.

“There are constantly mix-ups, they can’t fill shelter beds, there are mixups with bed linen,” said the activist, who did not want to be identified. The city reimburses the church shelters for bed linens and utilities.

On Staten Island, Troia admitted that at first volunteers were nervous about working with the homeless because her group lacked personal protective gear.

“Volunteers are really nervous about sleeping with people they don’t know in a room,” she said, adding that her group recently received a large donation of masks, gloves and other PPE from Art Science Research Laboratory, a Manhattan non-profit.

“It’s a blessing; our volunteers risk their lives. I slept in a shelter for the first two weeks of March.”

via: https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/nyc-pastor-welcomes-homeless-into-church-amid-coronavirus/

Photo Credit: J.C.Rice