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The ribbon-cutting for the city’s gleaming new $65 million homeless-intake center took an unexpected turn yesterday when one of the dignitaries disclosed she was once homeless herself but didn’t seek help at the old intake center because it was so frightening.
Her voice cracking with emotion, City Councilwoman Annabel Palma (D-Bronx) startled Mayor Bloomberg and other officials by recalling her life some 15 years ago as a homeless and desperate single mom who landed on the doorstep of the infamous Emergency Assistance Unit in the South Bronx.
“I didn’t even walk through the door,” Palma told the amazed officials. “Just looking at the front of the building discouraged me from walking inside with my 3-year-old son. So I just turned around.
“When people walk into a place looking for help they don’t want to be de-humanized, and the old building did that to people like myself and people in my community.”
Palma twice thanked the mayor for replacing the decrepit facility, where dozens of mothers and their kids frequently slept for days on floors awaiting placement.
She abruptly ended her remarks.
“I don’t want to overwhelm everyone,” she explained, fighting back tears.
“You know, sometimes you really walk away feeling good,” responded the mayor, who pledged in 2005 to replace a facility he described as revolting.
Palma later told reporters she was working as a certified nursing assistant in the mid-1990s when her hours were cut and she fell into debt and was evicted.
“It just got to a point when it got too much for me,” she said.
“I had heard of the EAU center, so I traveled there and it was just too discouraging. It was gloomy. I just didn’t want to expose my son to that.”
Palma eventually found a new apartment and full-time work. With the support of Local 1199, where she was an organizer, she was elected to the council in 2003.
Her disdain for the old EAU was shared by the mayor.
Upon being elected in 2001, Bloomberg said he paid a visit with Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs, then the homeless-services chief.
“I’ll never forget the experience,” he said. “It was an indignity no one should have to endure and it was a disgrace to our entire city.”