Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, we waited to speak to the homeless on Joralemon Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Our first case seemed to appear out of Borough Hall’s shadows, hunched over a banged-up walker, wrapped in layers of black, a silver beanie peaking from under her hoodie, its brim flecked with glitter. “Hi,” said my teammate for the evening. “We’re volunteers with the Department Of Homeless Services. Would it be OK if we asked you a few questions? Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

She began to cry; a single tear perched on the ridge of her cheek, which seemed to expand in the cold. “I can’t get down there,” she said, pointing at the nearest subway entrance. She was 71. “I ride the trains at night, but the elevators won’t work. They’re all out of order. I tried over there and over there, but I can’t get in nowhere.”

In name, the Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE, for your hashtag) isn’t a rescue operation; it’s a massive citywide survey, which tries to count the number of people living on the streets of New York. Each winter, over 3,000 volunteers canvass every nook and cranny of NYC, usually on the coldest night imaginable.

It’s partially an image campaign, to boost awareness of homelessness and give the city a better idea of where street denizens gather on the coldest nights of the year in order to better allocate resources. But the main reason for the count is that the federal government requires it. The City receives funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) based on the size of its number, a data-based stand-in for the severity of its problem.

The count’s methodology is thorough yet simple. At training centers across the five boroughs, volunteers are divided into teams of between three and six people. Each team is assigned a series of canvass zones—streets and subway stations where, during winter nights, the number of homeless tends to spike. Volunteers walk a single path through each zone, stopping every single person they encounter, rapidly filling out a questionnaire and, if asked for help, steer the homeless toward shelters and drop-in centers—safe spaces which provide meals, showers, and basic medical care, but no beds.

During our training an hour earlier, we were instructed that the City was in the midst of Code Blue, meaning anyone sleeping outside, anyone immobile with exposed extremities or crashing from intoxication, should receive an offer of immediate transportation to a safe, warm space.

Getting real. #hopecount A photo posted by Vanessa K. (@v_vagabond) on Feb 9, 2015 at 7:39pm PST

I watched this woman bristle as we mentioned the possibility of checking into a shelter, but, stranded without a single accessible path in the 2,3,4,5, or R trains at Borough Hall, she agreed to try a drop-in center. We called for a van, which was to be ready and in the area to easily transport anyone in need of help. No one picked up. My teammate called again. I listened in to the answer from her phone’s speaker.

“Oh, yeah, no, I’m not working tonight.”

“But you’re listed as the contact on the--”

“Yeah, sorry for the confusion, but I dunno.” Click.

The official van operator, our assigned contact for transportation to safety, didn’t even know he had a shift? We called the District Captain, who, bless his busy heart, spent nearly fifteen minutes on the phone trying to find someone else to help this woman. Too many things in motion, he lamented. Between the dead air, the woman used an empty bag of chips to warm her hands. As we continued to wait for help, she began a slow move toward a stairwell under an awning of the Brooklyn City Register Office. We were instructed not to follow anyone, but I shadowed her until she waved me off.

“It’s ridiculous they have you out here in the cold,” she said. “Go home. They ain’t coming to get me. You don’t know it, but nothing they say comes true.”

I urged her to hang tight, willed myself to lie that help would be there any minute, promised we would hang with her until she was safe. It felt, frankly, way more urgent than doing a count for numbers, for federal funding and photo ops. She sunk to the pavement, immobile yet ready, and I returned to my teammate for an update.

“They’re still trying to find someone.” We shook our heads in silent outrage. With each minute, we were falling behind on our project and, after completing a few random surveys from people clearly on their way to actual homes, we turned to find the woman had completely disappeared. No trace of her cart; nothing.

We were instructed to move on; you know, it’s a long night and it happens. Later, on the platforms for the 2/3 trains, uptown and down, we catalogued men sleeping on benches. Roused from their hard-earned slumber, they were so friendly answering our questions. No one wanted help, though. No one seemed to care too much.

Back at the training center, the other three members of our team (who had split-up before we started canvassing) relayed a similar story from the year before. The mythic van, apparently, never comes. Our District Captain, on hearing no one arrived, temporarily shut his eyes in a performance of resigned disgust. “But everything else went OK?” he asked, snapping back to reality.

This week you’ll see photos of Bill de Blasio in the streets with us. You’ll see the numbers (over 3,500 volunteers!) and maybe even some hashtagged group shots on Instagram. You’ll see, as I did, a beautiful, well-meaning set of New Yorkers who, when all was said and done, were surprisingly excited for a free T-shirt and photocopied form letter from the mayor. I know we didn’t set out to be saviors. Our job wasn’t to rescue anyone; it was simply to take a snapshot.

Yet I’m unable to shake that, at the one honest chance we had to make an immediate positive impact, the Department Of Homeless Services didn’t have their shit together to actually help someone in need. The MTA, at one of the largest transportation hubs in Brooklyn, didn't have a single path down to the trains for the handicapped. ("The MTA is dedicated to making the subway system as accessible as possible and takes the concerns of our accessible customers seriously," a spokesperson wrote in a statement.)

And the van? Well, they’re probably still looking for one.

DHS has not responded to our requests for comment.



Carter Maness is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn.