It is awful because they are terrible men that will exploit her presence. When it comes to everything but homelessness in Tompkins Square Park women out number men but in the park Marlene is a minority not just because she is African American. She is also blind in one eye. She struggles with issues that cruel ignorant people name wrongly and she needs help.
I know the NYPD has tried to help her over and over even getting housing which she has refused. Very sad and she is not the only person struggling with issues or illness that refuses help.
She has told me when she is sober she needs rehab. She is much smarter than people give her credit for but sadly she is like many celebrities we read about in the news but she doesn't have their wealth and she is an African American woman out there....Yes she is a survivor and she has endured all these years mostly out on the street but it appears that as many people age their bad behavior just gets worse....sad to say.
I heard from a source her sister did come to the park before the last incident and asked Marlene to please come with her and leave the park. I know first hand from trying to help a mentally ill homeless man that it is useless and the family is often powerless and the ill person can be very abusive so I understand why people give up.
I just feel awful about what has been going on and I have spoken to the police about my concerns for her and also creepy behavior directed at her.
Many people feel she was better off in prison. There she will get rehab. There no one can follow her around and exploit her for their purposes but there has to be a better way.
The 9th Precinct has tried over the years and I appreciate their many efforts including actually succeeding in getting her housing which she turned down. I know a homeless activist from Heuss House moved up to a shelter by the park when the HH closed under the Bloomberg administration and he immediately recognized Marlene and reached out to her also giving her housing and support and during that time she was drinking and telling me she has to stop. She knows she needs rehab. She knows she needs to stay away from the park but the park is not a thing of beauty when it comes to people struggling with addictions of any kind -- it becomes a dangerous place -- a place of broken dreams...where self destructive behavior is very public. I have written 2 poems about Tompkins and one is of the beautiful Tompkins and the other is about the homeless people sitting on the bench, waiting, waiting as if it was a bus stop...but the bus is not coming...broken dreams, cheap bottles of alcohol and needles...
Very sad that Marlene has returned to the most unhealthy place possible for her to be... Tompkins.
