'They’re Family': Act Of Kindness Plucks Man From Life On Streets

TRIBECA, NY — This winter, as snow pummeled New York City, a homeless man named Stanley slept in a bed for the first time in four years.

The room was small, just wide enough to fit a twin bed with a little space between the frame and the wall, but for Stanley — who had spent countless nights on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street in Tribeca — it was more than he had had in a very long time.

Stanley, who asked that his legal name not be used to protect his privacy, has lived since 2014 on a storefront step on a Tribeca building, enduring frigid temperatures, sweltering heat and pouring rain, only occasionally taking refuge in a nearby subway station.

But in August, he met Michael Sloan who was walking his dog near Stanley's corner. The chance encounter eventually led to him having a home for the first time in years.

After meeting Stanley, Sloan and his wife Kate Sloan launched a GoFundMe and have raised more than $11,000 for the man, keeping him housed and fed since December and allowing Stanley to plan for his future.

Stanley immigrated to the U.S. for work and was studying to become a pharmacist’s assistant before he lost his home and began living on the streets. His unusual journey shows how homelessness can paralyze a person’s life – and how the extraordinary kindness of a neighbor can restart it.

When Stanley was living on the steps of 356 Broadway, he was one of 75,000 homeless people in New York City, and part of the even smaller community of 3,900 people who live exclusively on the streets. The city’s homeless population has burgeoned in the last decade, and the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people has increased 40 percent in just a year, according to city estimates.

Sloan, a 44-year-old executive at the popsicle company Chloe’s Fruit, said he first noticed Stanley when he and his wife spotted him asleep under a pile of blankets and cardboard in an empty storefront near their Tribeca apartment. A few days later, he approached Stanley while walking his dog. The two started talking.

Stanley had a punctual schedule, he told Patch. He would arrive at the storefront, with his sleeping bag, belongings and bicycle in tow, late at night and discreetly create a small nook where he would sleep. By 5 a.m., he would leave for the day, making the longtime Tribeca resident a nearly invisible presence in the neighborhood.

He spent his days moving between Manhattan soup kitchens, where he’d get food and a break from the elements and sometimes packaged snacks to save for later. Occasionally, he would stop by a local public library to use the computer or spend time indoors, he said, but he rarely ventured too far from his bike, which had all of his possession strapped to it. At the end of the day, Stanley would return to Broadway and Leonard Street, where he would sometimes rummage in the dumpster of the local Think Coffee, looking for uneaten sandwiches.

Stanley moved to the U.S. from India in 2005, hoping to find success and a good job. For a while, he succeeded. He worked in a Queens hospital for several years, living in a nearby apartment and sending money to his parents and brothers in Delhi, he said.

A quick succession of misfortunes changed his life: While studying to be a physician’s assistant in a Midtown education center, a surprise bill disrupted Stanley’s finances. He was evicted from his apartment and moved into a different apartment in Park Slope.

He lived in Park Slope from about 2009 until 2014, he estimates, struggling to find work, until he was evicted from that apartment as well.

In his first night without a home to call his own, Stanley went to a city shelter. The experience, he said, was unpleasant enough to dissuade him from returning.

The shelter was overcrowded, with dozens of men crammed into the space, some of them sleeping on the floor, Stanley said.

“They put me in the kitchen, and everybody slept on the floor, so [I was] next to 60 or 70 guys,” he said. “The guy next to me was injecting and they gave us blankets but at that time there were a lot of bedbugs.”

The next day, feeling unsafe and uncomfortable with the conditions at the shelter, Stanley left. He eventually found his way to the vacant storefront at Broadway and Leonard Street, and after sleeping there a few nights was permitted to stay by the building’s landlord.

Stanley slept there in a burrow of blankets and cardboard almost every night between 2014 and 2017.

Stanley’s life sleeping in the Tribeca storefront was difficult, and often painful. One night, a group of men began smoking weed near Stanley’s makeshift home, he said. When Stanley woke up and told them to leave, one of the men threw a lit cigarette butt at Stanley, burning his shirt.

On another night, someone sat down on Stanley as he slept, not realizing that there was person lying beneath the cardboard box.

Sloan heard stories — about sometimes going days without food, about trying to keep warm in an unheated subway station in the heart of winter, about having limited contact with his family and few companions — over the course of several months, slowly learning more about his neighbor. At first, Sloan provided company, and some cash or a ginger ale, for Stanley, saying hello as he walked home for the evening or took his dog around the block. Eventually, as Sloan and Stanley began to learn more about each other and trust each other, they became friends.

Sloan said things began to change when, one night, Stanley admitted that he had been bathing and washing his clothes in the Hudson River. He had previously gone to a low-cost gym to clean himself, but after his membership expired he was forced to bathe in the river, he said. By September, the water had grown too cold to use for cleaning. Could Sloan and his family help him buy a low-cost gym membership so he could use the shower there?

“That really threw me for a loop because something as simple as $100 could change this man's life in a way which we take for granted,” Sloan said. “That conversation made me realize we can really do something to help him.”

The Sloans launched a GoFundMe, and shared the link with their friends, family and neighbors, ultimately raising more than $11,000, enough to put Stanley in a hostel before winter began in earnest. Stanley spent his first night in a hostel on Dec. 15, the night of New York City’s first major snowstorm of the season.

For Christmas, the Sloans bought Stanley a new computer and a cell phone, which he’s used to email his family in India. Stanley has even found part time work at a store in Tribeca, and is looking for a fulltime job. He wants to save enough money to buy a ticket home to India, he said.

Stanley said he hopes to return to his family in India and restart his life there after so many years away. Sloan and Stanley are planning on using the remainder of the GoFundMe to pay for Stanley’s ticket to India, and to allow him to get a fresh start there.

On Friday, the Sloans celebrated Stanley’s 54th the birthday — Stanley said it was the first birthday he remembered celebrating since he moved to the U.S. The Sloans invited their family and neighbors from the building to a party for Stanley, where they gave him his birthday present: A rolling suitcase for him to travel back to India with.

“Before this, I didn’t have anyone,” Stanley said. “They’re my family now.”

GoFundMe is a Patch promotional partner.

Image credit: Courtesy of Michael Sloan