Categories: New York City
04.03.2014
An interview with a veteran of the New York social services community
May 1 will mark the retirement of a long time friend and veteran in the fight to end homelessness in NYC. Diane Sonde has been working in the field of social services and mental health, addressing issues of housing and homelessness, for over four decades. Her career started in the 1960s as a caseworker for the NYC Department of Social Services. She will soon be retiring from her position as an Assistant Deputy Commissioner at the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA)’s Customized Assistance Services.
Perhaps most notably, Ms. Sonde is credited as being one of the first New Yorkers to engage in street outreach for homeless people. On the eve of her retirement, we had the opportunity to talk with Ms. Sonde about her pioneering days doing street outreach and the many lessons she's learned from her decades of service.
Network: You began your career as a caseworker in the 1960s and ’70s. Can you tell us a little about this experience?
Diane Sonde: Working as a Protective Service worker at the Bureau of Child Welfare was an eye-opener. As a child of the sixties, I was idealistic. I wanted to work with families and prevent children from being separated from their parents. I didn't believe placing children in group homes and other types of foster care was a solution. Unfortunately, by observing the unforgettable dysfunction of a few families and the abuse they imposed on children, the likes of which I’d never seen before, it became clear this wasn’t always possible.
Network: What drew you to this line of work in the first place?
DS: There was an ad in the New York City subway system I'd see each day on my way to CCNY [City College of New York] of an elderly lady sitting on a park bench, and it asked if you wanted to help her. Frankly, it was that poster that first drew me to work at the Department of Welfare, my first job in city service.
Network: In the ’70s, you became a Project Coordinator for what was then called Crisis Intervention Services at HRA. In what way did this experience serve as a gateway to your later work?
DS: I spent most of my days working in two SRO hotels as part of an on-site service team with elderly and mentally ill people. One was the Stratford Arms and the other was the Aberdeen Hotel. These SROs were operated by private landlords who housed residents with lengthy histories of psychiatric hospitalizations. Most received public assistance and virtually all needed clinical and other supportive services. Observing what life was like for people living in this type of housing laid the foundation for my interest in working to improve and preserve SRO housing stock.
Network: Can you take us through an average day for you back then?
DS: At the Stratford Arms, where some clients were extremely isolated and lonely while others were pining for attention, I ran a baking group with some of the residents. We shared all the pies and cakes that we made with the rest of the tenants in the building. That activity helped me get to know the folks in a different kind of way. I found them intriguing, lovable, humorous, curious. I also got to know the landlord and how SROs operated. It became evident how essential service interventions were to maintain residents in their housing, especially for those with challenging unstable medical and mental health needs. And my work with Al Pettis and others at the Aberdeen was my master class.
Network: How did this experience differ from your next job as director of the Murray Hill SRO Project in the 1980s?
My responsibilities were vastly different when I became the director of a nonprofit program. Murray Hill SRO for Older People was a program created to provide services for frail, elderly residents living in 30 SRO hotels in Manhattan. The program functioned as a senior center where clients would eat meals together, socialize, play cards and schmooze. Volunteer psychiatrists from Bellevue would drop by to visit with their patients. Our staff provided outreach and case management services to clients in their homes in an effort to prevent them from becoming homeless. The program housed the Eastside SRO Legal Services Project, which worked to organize tenants who were being threatened with eviction by unscrupulous landlords.
This was my first direct exposure to ruthless landlords. Owners wanted to terminate long-term tenants from their buildings, hoping for new tenants who would pay higher rents. The frailer our clients became, the more vulnerable they were to ever more vicious attempts by landlords to evict them. Sadly, the 1980s were a watershed decade for dumping tenants onto the sidewalks of New York City. This is the time I joined the SRO Tenant’s Rights Coalition.
Network: What were some of the major lessons you took away from this time period?
DS: The difference between the sixties and the eighties is that now you're older and hopefully wiser. You're certainly tougher. And "tougher" trumps "wiser" anytime you're dealing with horrible landlords. That’s one thing I learned.
I may have had an outreach staff then, but now I knew what it was like to really do outreach in the field, oftentimes involving dangerous and violent situations. Some people who are now well known in the field of hunger, homelessness and housing, I met then. I feel most fortunate to have met incredibly dedicated people like Sue Smith, Ellen Baxter, Kim Hopper, Gretchen Buchenholz, John McVean and John Felice.
It was from them I learned the art of observation, the benefit of fighting the good fight and the effectiveness of advocacy. They schooled me to appeal to different bureaucratic authorities for different problems and to utilize the power of the press when people’s lives were at stake and their homes were being lost. Our clients had no voice. That’s the theme I carried through to my experience at Project Reachout. Sadly, clients who were already living on the street had even less of a voice.
Network: Let’s move on to Project Reachout, the program at Goddard Riverside Community Center you directed for 15 years. What was it like to be on the vanguard of street outreach for homeless New Yorkers?
DS: It was an extraordinary experience and one that changed my life forever. I learned how folks with a serious mental illness coped with the challenges of living “in plain sight” on the street. They were struggling to survive.
I learned about the environments these folks were living in – remote areas in Central Park, the zoo, other more visible places we would never consider as a place in which to survive. Individuals made their homes in the bathrooms at Central and Riverside Parks. Our teams of outreach workers brought sandwiches to these clients who were living in the most isolated places. They were just lost. These people wouldn’t come in for services. Our work entailed engaging them, trying to earn their trust, which took days and sometimes months.
The tool we used was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Homeless folks were welcome to come into our office, take a shower, get different clothes, stay with us, have coffee. We had an office space and a club program where they could hang out, if they wanted, or they could go back out to the street. We worked with them gradually until they felt comfortable enough to stay. Then we’d move them into temporary housing at a neighborhood SRO. We helped them obtain entitlements. Our volunteer psychiatrists saw them informally and wrote prescriptions for them. If and when the clients were willing to take medication, it was ready for them. Our non-traditional approach to mental health services included "M&Ms" – medication management and money management.
During this time we worked closely with small church and synagogue-run shelters based in the community. Many of our more senior folks stayed temporarily at Valley Lodge, which is one of the best programs in New York City, where they remained until we could locate a permanent supportive housing program for them. We were very particular about the permanent housing we obtained for our folks. We wanted them to live in a secure, humane, service-enriched environment where they could remain for the rest of their lives, if that was their choice.
Network: Can you recall any one or two individual cases that really left an impression on you during this time period?
DS: Yes, of course. There are so many. Betty was a woman in her 60s who made her home on a bench in Verdi Park and entertained passersby by, engaging them in conversation and panhandling. Always cheerful, she talked about her days in Hollywood, the beauty contests she’d won and claimed she was Elizabeth Taylor. After a bitter cold spell and a brief hospitalization, Betty agreed to come inside, accepting a bed at Valley Lodge. During the day, she hung out at Reachout, where, two weeks before she died, she met the daughter she had given up for adoption many years before.
In April of 1990, a young woman came to our program looking for her mother, whom she believed was homeless in New York City. It turned out that Betty had given birth to this young woman when she was in a state psychiatric hospital in Maryland. Both shed tears as they were reunited in the basement office of Project Reachout.
I’m happy to report there were many family reunions. We made special efforts to seek out family members to reconnect folks whenever possible.
Network: For the last 11 years, you’ve served as an Assistant Deputy Commissioner at HRA. During this time we’ve seen a substantial increase in supportive housing production. How have you seen our model benefit the most vulnerable people, people like Betty, in New York City?
DS: I’m a firm believer in the support and community setting offered by supportive housing. People who have multiple, special needs are at greater risk of relapse, repeated episodes of homelessness and incarceration without critical support services. I’m concerned that supportive housing, as we know it, might be at risk with the vast changes currently happening with Medicaid Redesign and more restrictive government funding. No matter what we do, we can’t lose sight of recent history – those days when thousands of people were living on our streets, malnourished and in deteriorated and shameful medical and mental health conditions. While some new models are creative and inventive, we have to take every precaution not to go back to where we were not so long ago. The pioneers in this field have done such admirable, courageous work. We need to be mindful of that as we move forward.
Network: Having worked in the NYC social services sector for more than 35 years, do you have any words of advice for those working in our field?
DS: It’s an incredible opportunity to work in the social service field, to be able to take your energy, your creativity and your enthusiasm and share it with others who can benefit from your experience, knowledge and wisdom. Keep your eyes open. Always be open to new adventures. I advise anybody to look at people who are living on the street and remember: they could be your family, your friends. Look at them and remember that they’re human beings. Do what you can to offer assistance, whether directly through your work or by volunteering. There are always opportunities for further learning.
Network: Your last day at HRA is May 1. What do you hope will lie ahead?
DS: Rest and relaxation. I really don’t have any special plans. I’m going to see what happens next.