Annual walk battles stigma of homelessness one step at a time
Apr. 28—NEW LONDON — Catherine Galante, speaking to a crowd of hundreds who'd signed up Sunday for the Homeless Hospitality Center's 17th annual Walk to End Homelessness, delivered the message that "there's a lot of reasons people become homeless."
For Galante, currently staying in one of seven rooms in a respite area of the center, it began with the death of her fiance Jimmy.
"I lived in my apartment for many years with my fiance," she recalled. "I went in for spinal surgery, and came home and I found him. He had passed on in our apartment."
"And I became homeless," she said.
According to the most recent data from the statewide nonprofit Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, Galante is not alone. She joins what would be, at that time, 2,594 homeless persons statewide. Of those, 2,165 were sheltered, like Galante is at the hospitality center, 429 were unsheltered.
Meanwhile, the coalition's most recent data on Norwich and New London, from 2020, found 223 in those two cities to be homeless, 188 sheltered and 35 not.
According to the coalition's 2020 data, 502 of the state's homeless were also survivors of domestic violence. Meanwhile, 256 were living with mental illness, 125 suffered from substance addiction and 34 were living with HIV or AIDS.
"There's so many people, and so many different reasons for people being homeless," Galante said. "You know, there's mental illness, there's domestic violence, there's house fires. There's so many different reasons ― you know, people getting out of the prison system."
That's why every year, the city's Homeless Hospitality Center at 730 State Pier Road organizes a fundraiser walk where the proceeds go directly to the center, one of the larger adult shelters in southeastern Connecticut that serves multiple regional towns, said Annah Perch, the center's director of development.
Last year, the walk raised about $40,000 for the center, Perch said. It is still unclear how much was raised at this year's walk, but Perch said by the time people began signing up for the walk in Parade Plaza Sunday, they'd raised $20,000 in donations alone.
"And each one of you who donated today are playing a role in Cathy going home soon," Perch told the walkers before sending them on a 2.6-mile loop down State, Huntington, Williams, Manwaring, Hempstead, Jay, Coit, Washington, Tilley and Bank streets.
Barbara Montrose, the center's Emergency Response Team leader, oversees outreach for the center and helps people looking for shelter there. She was one of the hundreds walking Sunday. She echoed Galante's message that there are "all kinds of things that can land someone into homelessness."
She said it's important for people here to be aware that the affordable housing crisis in the region is causing an uptick in homelessness in groups that did not struggle before.
"We're all in this together," Montrose said.
"It's a traumatizing thing. What we need to do, as a community, is to be compassionate and care about each other," she said. "We're blessed in New London County to have people who really do care about people being homeless."
She added one of the major benefits of walks like the one on Sunday is they are good at making people struggling with homelessness feel seen.
Bishme Sheppard, a rehab technician for Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, agreed as he touted a sign that said "Homes For All." The hospital was one of the sponsors of the walk.
Sheppard said the walk was an opportunity for him and other L+M employees to shed light on "people that are less fortunate, and to be able to give back and bring awareness."
"Because we have a privilege ― that we get to go home ― you know? Some people don't even have a home," he said. "Everybody deserves a home. Everybody deserves a better quality of life."
Before the walk, Galante said she was grateful to the hundreds who signed up. Recalling moments afterward how she'd got to the hospitality center, she remembered that she'd first known something was wrong with her fiance when she was preparing for discharge from L+M and couldn't reach him on the phone.
"You don't understand," she remembered telling workers there. "I've known this man for 13 years, and he's not answering his phone."
She then recalled how for five days, she'd stayed in the apartment to take care of their cat. On the fifth, she had a fall, and was once again transported to Lawrence + Memorial, but this time without the option of going back to the apartment her fiance had paid for.
"I was at the hospital and I had nowhere to go," she said. "I didn't know what I was going to do."
Her social worker, she said, had reached out to the Homeless Hospitality Center.
"From then, I went on to the Homeless Hospitality Center where I would stay in respite," Galante told hundreds of people before the walk. "Where I have my own room and I've been taken care of so greatly by everybody there. I can never tell you how grateful I am for the Homeless Hospitality Center. They have saved my life. I don't know what I would have done and where I would be without them."
"And I'm going to maybe be housed by the weekend, and I'm really happy about that," Galante said, drawing loud applause from the people who walked Sunday.
