To many people, the quintessential day at Coney Island consists of lying on the beach, eating a hot dog at Nathan’s and riding the Cyclone. Digging in the trash, bathing in the ocean, and sleeping on the sidewalk are on Liz Sidlik’s seaside agenda.
The 32-year-old Connecticut native has been in New York City since September. Sidlik, who originally left her home state as a teenager to follow around the Grateful Dead and most recently traveled the country while working with a carnival, came to Coney Island on Memorial Day weekend from Tompkins Square Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“I like it better over here,” said Sidlik. “In Manhattan, you can’t sleep nowhere and no one lets you use the bathroom. Going to the bathroom and sleeping – human things we all need to do – they make it impossible.”
Sidlik, who has been homeless on-and-off for 16 years, panhandles in Coney Island but says donations often depend on the weather. Even when nights are cold, she prefers to sleep on the sidewalk, but stores personal items under the boardwalk. Although she digs through the garbage about four times a week, Sidlik maintains that Coney Island provides easier living for a homeless person than Manhattan. She admits that she relies on the kindness of others to live and fears that without that help she’d be dead.
“People out here are a lot more generous,” said Sidlik. “I’ve found the later, the better. When parents bring their children out here, they make sure they have money to play games. You catch them on their way out and they got a few extra bucks. People are generous in Manhattan, too, but you got to be patient.”
Sidlik is one of a number of homeless persons who have settled in Coney Island for the summer season. Although there is no official tally of the seasonal migrants, permanent residents of the neighborhood have expressed alarm about the boardwalk and sidewalks in the area becoming camps and sleeping grounds. And this growth in homelessness coincides with the peak of Coney Island’s tourism season in the week of the July 4 holiday.
A spokesman for the city’s Department of Homeless Services said that Coney Island is a high priority area. The DHS currently has 30 cases open in the neighborhood for helping the homeless street population find housing. The organization contracted by the department to work in the area, Common Grounds, also works closely with the Community Board on the issue.
One year Chuck Reichenthal, the district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 13, found a working fax machine under the boardwalk. The homeless persons who set up camp found a way to tap into a nearby electrical pole. Reichenthal noted problems with residents living under the boardwalk and trying to stay warm. “There have been a couple of fires in recent years that were unfortunate,” he said, “putting businesses out for a season or making people leave an apartment house that was adjacent to the fire.”
This summer marks Esteven Antonio-Plumey’s sixth summer at Coney Island. He and his girlfriend are usually in the area from 8 a.m. to midnight. They know of abandoned buildings in the neighborhood to stay the night and have friends who set up camp under the boardwalk. Antonio-Plumey and his girlfriend sleep on the beach occasionally but prefer to go back to the squat they share with 16 others.
“A lot of the kids come here during the summer time,” said Antonio-Plumey. “I’m squatting right now, so I’m not traveling. A lot of my friends come back this time of year and we all kick it on the pavilion and on the boardwalk.”
Like Sidlik, Antonio-Plumey said the working- and middle-class residents of Coney Island are more generous than prosperous Manhattanites. In Manhattan, he can sit outside for five hours and come back to the squat with $10, but in Coney Island he said he’s almost guaranteed $20, but usually leaves with more.
“In Manhattan, people are used to saying, ‘No.’ They don’t even look your way,” he said. “Out here, people, like, give because they know what it’s like to be poor.”
Antonio-Plumey has been offered helped from city agencies multiple times and knows that assistance is available to him. Now that he is squatting and plans to stay in New York for a while, he’s thinking of taking up the aid.
“I actually want to work this year,” he said. “I want to see if I can actually get a small job, like a messaging job. I want to do something different.”
Reichenthal seconded Antonio-Plumey’s knowledge of instances of homeless residents squatting in buildings located in the Coney Island. “We had a whole development that was constructed and wasn’t being used,” said Reichenthal. “The buildings had been finished and because the units were empty the homeless found them and there was vandalism and fires. The buildings were eventually taken down.”
Every Monday morning, Fellowship Baptist Church in Coney Island provides homeless residents in the area with a meal, a change of clothes, and a message from the Bible. The church also provides showers from September to May. Shower kits, which include toiletries such as soap and shampoo, are provided during the summer months. Residents can take the shower kits to the showers at the beach to clean up. Jim Samways, a deacon at the church, has noticed a number of new faces in the Coney Island homeless population to which he and other church members minister.
Many of the homeless people who attend the Monday morning breakfast also tap into the church’s resources for public assistance and addiction counseling. Samways has been an addictions counselor for 32 years, and has no plans of stopping anytime soon.
“People ask me, ‘Why are you hanging around here? You’re 75 years old!’” joked Samways after a Sunday morning service. “My purpose is that I’m seeing people grow. I’m not dead, I’m still going, and I figure if I stop I’ll die.”
Although there are services for homeless in the area, there are no homeless shelters in Coney Island. The Department of Homeless Services’ HOPE Survey, which is conducted to count the number of unsheltered residents in the five boroughs, cited 368 unsheltered people in Brooklyn for the 2012 survey. The count, which was conducted on January 30, showed an increase of more than 50 percent compared to the 2011 HOPE Survey for Brooklyn, which cited 242 unsheltered residents. But not every person sleeping outside identifies themselves as homeless.
Zack Cohen, 23, has been sleeping under the boardwalk since April and prefers to call himself a traveler. Cohen, who knows both Sidlik and Antonio-Plumey from Manhattan, eats out of the garbage, but not always due to lack of money. “You’d be amazed at what people throw away,” he said. “I’ll have $100 in my pocket and still eat out of the garbage.”
The borough count for the HOPE survey conducted by the DHS is not broken down by neighborhood. There is no specific data to show the number of homeless residents in Coney Island at any given time of the year – whether in January, when the survey is conducted, or in the middle of July. The issue arises from increased community concern about the homeless population during the summer months. Although Sidlik recognizes and understands concern within the community, she does not feel she’s bothering anyone.
“I don’t break into cars, I don’t rob people,” she said. “I don’t take advantage of people. I got a sign, if you want to give, you give, if you don’t, you don’t. It is what it is.”
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