I started my first carpet cleaning company at the age of 23. I have spent a great deal of my working life working in the carpet cleaning industry. When you work as a carpet cleaner you see the full spectrum of economic diversity in America. I have cleaned carpets in homes ranging from opulent multimillion dollar estates to seedy flop houses. I've been called on to clean up after floods, crime scenes, people with up to a hundred cats that used the entire house as a litter box, or after a person has passed away. I have seen the best and the worst of what life has to offer. The range of people that I have met is equally as diverse as the homes and situations that have lead me to be called upon for service. After seeing the type of human suffering that I have seen you begin to develop a hardness, a sort of tough shell that allows you to deal with people that are faced with tragic circumstances. Yet as hard as you become there are images that stay with you and pierce through the hardened shell of your indifference.
One morning I received a call from a landlord who had several low income apartments scattered about in a rust belt city that borders on the Hudson river in upstate New York. She would call whenever she had a turnover so that we could clean the carpets before the next tenant moved in. Most of the jobs involved some sort of problem situation like pet odors, heavy soil or large stains. This particular job entailed cleaning carpets in an apartment that was a boarding house flat occupied by three men. One of the three men had recently been incarcerated for assaulting another man that lived in the apartment. So she wanted to have the carpets cleaned before his replacement moved in. The man who was assaulted had recently cleaned the bathroom and complained to his assailant for urinating on the bathroom floor. A fight broke out and the man who had complained was beaten and thrown through the second story window, shattering the glass and landing in the ally below. Fortunately he escaped with only cuts a bruises. My wife and I drove to the apartment in our carpet cleaning van. The apartment was located in a rundown section of town that was once a working class neighborhood during the height of the industrial revolution and into the early nineteen seventies. But now the homes were in bad disrepair and the area had become very seedy. The landlord brought us into the apartment so that we could estimate the cleaning cost. I immediately smelled a pungent odor of stale cooking, cat urine and filth. The hall and stairs were carpeted with a short shag multicolor carpet that was widely used in low income homes during the 1970's. The center of the stairs were soiled to the point where you could no longer identify what color the carpet was. There were pieces of large debris sitting on top of the face yarn as if the carpet had not been vacuumed in years. At the top of the stairs was a landing that had an old refrigerator and a microwave oven on it. There were three bedrooms each measuring about 9'X12' and a small full bath with a toilet, tub & shower unit and a small hand sink that hung from the wall. The bathroom window that the man had been thrown through was still boarded up. There was no kitchen or dining area nor was there a sink large enough to wash dishes in. Apparently the men would cook their meals in the microwave oven, eat on their beds and wash any dishes in the filthy bathtub that was shared by the three occupants. Words cannot describe the squalor and unsanitary living conditions that these men lived in. We presented the landlord with an estimate and she agree to the price. She asked if it would be alright if the man who had been assaulted stayed in his room while we cleaned his rug. We agreed to that and cleaned the two vacant rooms and the landing before we did his room. I knocked on the door and a small framed man with cuts and bruises on his face answered the door. The man let me in and we engaged in small talk as I was cleaning his carpet. He told me how he ended up living in this apartment. He was once married and worked but he was injured on the job and now has a permanent, partial disability. He said that the lost wage compensation that he receives from New York State Workers Compensation is so low that this is the only housing situation that he can afford. It occurred to me that if he is not killed first the man will live out the remainder of his life in a 9x12 room, eating microwaved food on his bed and washing dishes in a filthy bathtub. His crime was simply becoming disabled while working in New York.
It's easy to point the finger at somebody like this and say that he could do some sort of work. Depending on his disability and skills that may or may not be true. However if you are middle aged, disabled and have a spotty work history the likelihood of obtaining suitable employment is not very good. Being physically able to work and being employable are not the same thing. The laws and programs designed to protect the disabled do nothing to compel or encourage hiring a person that can work nor is there any protection to provide them with a living wage should employment not be available. The Americans With Disabilities Act does not compel employers to hire the disabled. If a person has a spotty work history as a result of being disabled he or she is not even considered for the position. In order for the provision of accommodations to have any real meaning a person would need to be hired first. It is very easy for the HR department to weed out the disabled people intentional or not simply on the basis of work history. To add to the problem not everyone has the skills required to do anything other than be a laborer nor do they have the aptitude to further their education.
I have seen hundreds of these flop houses during my career. Often the people that are living there are disabled and trying to squeak by on an income that is thousands of dollars below the poverty level. Regardless of how you may feel about the disabled if you had ever been inside one of these filthy rat infested apartments it would leave you with a mental image that sticks with you forever. Things have not changed much from a dark period in our history when a reporter named Geraldo Rivera did a documentary called "The Unforgotten" in 1972. It brought to light the horrible living conditions at a New York State run institution for developmentally disabled people called Willowbrook. The occupants lived in filth and endured unspeakable acts of abuse and neglect at the hands of the staff. If not for the documentary by Geraldo Rivera the abuse would likely have continued until today. The New York State run Willowbrook School was in existence from the 1930's until 1987. The school was designed to house 4,000 people but had as many as 6,000 occupants in 1967. Like many New York State institution of it's time people were not referred to by name but instead were called by a number given to them for identification. Much like the case numbers assigned to disabled workers by Workers Comp. Many people that once occupied New York State run facilities like Willowbrook are buried in grave yards where grave markers are marked only by identification numbers. Unless you know the name of the person buried under the marker they are a nameless faceless corpse forgotten by history and left as a memento of a dark period in New York State history. After the Geraldo Rivera report public outcry was such that widespread reform changed the policies regarding the treatment of developmentally disabled people in New York State and Willowbrook was eventually closed.
We like to believe that our society has advanced beyond the mistakes that we made at Willowbrook but when you see the desperately poor people that I have seen living in boarding houses simply because they are disabled you know that we have not changed much since Willowbrook. Although great strides have been made regarding the treatment of developmentally disabled people widespread discrimination and abuse still exists with people with disabilities in New York State. The only real difference between a place like Willowbrook and the flop houses that house the disabled is that instead of six thousand disabled people living in horrid conditions in a single facility they are now spread to flop houses located in slums all over the State of New York. You cannot tell me that the people that oversee the agencies like New York State Workers Compensation and others are blind to the fact that condemning a disabled person to live on compensation that is far below the poverty line is wrong. They are under the delusion that it is what best serves public utility, the majority of citizens in New York are not disabled so the minority are left to suffer. Not only does this ignore the obvious moral implications but it ignores the fact that anyone can become disabled. So having an insurance that provides a living wage to people that cannot work serves the entire populous and not just those who are disabled. Without an angry outcry of the people of New York the disabled are the silent minority just as the people at places like Willowbrook once were. It is rationalized by the idea that it is less expensive to neglect than to serve. If you can wash down a large group of mentally retarded people with a garden hose and a brush it costs the State of New York less to provide their care than it does to bathe them individually. That same line of thought is used in determining the amount paid out in lost wage compensation by New York State Workers Compensation. It is less expensive to provide a person just enough to live in filthy boarding houses than it is to provide a reasonable standard of assistance. But the system supports thousands of lawyers, judges, independent medical examiners and state employees. All of this expense is a drain on the funds that should be going to injured workers. If you eliminate all but an essential few people needed to operate the system you could pay injured workers that cannot work a living wage and it may in fact cost the state less money. Any insurance that does not provide a living wage to a person who is unable to work is unacceptable. If a person can work than the State needs to do everything that it can to assure that they are hired in a capacity suitable to their ability. My feeling is that there should be an adjustable rate disability insurance where the rates that employers pay for insurance decreases in proportion to the number of disabled people a company employs. I agree with those that feel that people that can work should work to the fullest extent of their capabilities. But that is a two sided coin. Employers need to be held accountable to hire disabled people or to pay them not to work if that is how they so chose. New York State Workers Compensation is a carryover from a sad time in our history. It is a shameful system that reeks of the foul stench of times gone by when people thought that institution like Willowbrook provided fair treatment for the disabled. The people of New York State deserve better than this. It is a matter of public utility to have our workers protected by an insurance that provides adequate compensation should a worker become disabled and can no longer work. But to be viable it also needs to compel employers to hire and train people that can work.
Friends of mine have expressed a concern that I may suffer retribution for writing pieces like this. That is a sad statement that we feel that people are not allowed to fight to change unfair laws in a democracy. Think of the thousands of people that must have known what was going on at Willowbrook. Imagine the amount of employees, vendors, contractors, family members of the occupants and New York State officials that knew about the abuse that was taking place at Willowbrook but did nothing to stop it. If not for Geraldo Rivera exercising his right to free speech the abuse would not have been put to rest. You know that Workers Compensation is causing millions of disabled people to live in impoverished conditions. Many disabled people are living far below the poverty level not only in New York State but all over America. If you sit by and do nothing your inaction makes you as complicit as the people who knew about Willowbrook School and chose to do nothing. Your silence allows for millions of people to live below the poverty level simply because they are disabled. A change in the law may someday protect your son or daughter. Even if it only serves to protect people you never know they need your voice to be raised for them.
A gust of wind blows down the back of my neck so I flip up the collar of my jacket and walk staring down at the long shadow I cast on the frost covered leaves. The sun is descending and casts its amber rays through the baron limbs of trees swaying from gusts of November winds. I pause for a moment and stand and listen to the rustle of the leaves blowing across the ground at the Letchworth Village Cemetery. The stillness of my silent reflection is broken by the faint echo of a dog barking in the distance. The steel markers baring only numbers tilting this way and that mark the graves of the people that silent voices had forgotten. Resting here are the souls of those we lost in our complicit acts of silence.
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