08/10/2007
Center helps the homeless
By: FRAN MORALES , Herald staff

NEW BRITAIN - Carol Gee never imagined she would end up homeless. But after five years of being battered by her boyfriend, she said had enough.
The problem was, where would she go?
"I didn't know when it would stop," Gee said. "I just accepted it ... I didn't know there was help out there and I was embarrassed to ask."

After a severe beating in January, the 44-year-old finally sought treatment.
"I lost everything, I didn't have nowhere to go," Gee said, who entered the Shepard Shelter home in Middletown in February.
Now seven months later, the mother of three says she is safe and secure in the shelter.
"They're like my family now," she said.
It took LuAnn Talbert 28 years to escape her heroin addiction and seek help. A runaway teen, drugs became her only escape from family problems.
"It got to the point if I didn't clean up I was going to die," the 48-year-old said. "There comes a point if you spend all your money on drugs, you become homeless."
Talbert has been clean for two years, has gotten on her feet and is living in a Middletown apartment. She is on the board of directors of the Community Health Center and sits on the National Consumer Advisory Board for the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council.
Although her health issues restrict her from working, she receives disability benefits because of a deteriorated slip disk.
Gee and Talbert represent the faces of the millions of homeless in the United States and are the images plastered on the walls of the Community Health Center at 1 Washington Square.
With friends, supporters, directors and others by their sides, Gee and Talbert gathered to raise awareness at the health center's Health Care for the Homeless Day Wednesday to convey that homelessness is not only the city's problem but is a state and nationwide issue.
"We are here to help them get back on their feet, to help give them a healthy life," said Susan Hadley, medical director for Healthcare for the Homeless at the Community Health Center.
Unemployment, low wages and the rising cost of living, contribute to homelessness.
Personal issues like domestic violence and drug or alcohol abuse are also factors.
Thirty percent of homeless people are homeless because of substance abuse and 22 percent of homeless people suffer from serious mental problems and physical illnesses, according to Agi Erickson, program coordinator of the health center.
"It only takes several unfortunate circumstances to be put in [homeless] situations," Gee said.
"People have no idea what the circumstances are that led you to go there. It could happen to anyone."
More than 33,000 people in Connecticut experience homelessness in a typical year; 13,000 of those are children, Erickson said.
Last year, the city's homeless shelters housed 631 displaced people; 1,142 were turned away from shelters because there were no beds available.
"But the number frequently varies because people tend to float from one city to the other," Erickson said.
Without health care or housing, homeless people are three to six times more likely to die from everyday illnesses, Hadley said. They're also likely to become victims of unprovoked hate crimes.
Unable to pay for medical care, and with no permanent address, homeless people are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting proper treatment.
"Most walk-in clinics shun them because they have no home address," Hadley said. "It's heartbreaking."
In its first year, the health center received 3,000 visits from homeless people, according to Erickson.
"All people deserve respect and dignity homeless or not," Talbert said. "They deserve universal health care."
She volunteers much of her time at the center on Washington Street.
"They have giving me so much to get me back on my feet," Talbert said. "It's my way of giving back."