Crowd Bonds, Camps Out For Irene Bucks

A possum gave the crowd a middle-of-the-night scare. Otherwise some shared coffee and a bootleg copy of ​“Transformers” helped over 100 hearty help-seekers make it through as they camped out overnight in hopes of obtaining $200 to $1,000 in emergency post-Irene help.

The crowd has filled Bassett Street outside the state social services office since Monday, as word spread that low-income people not already on food stamps could pick up one-time federal disaster money to cover financial losses in last month’s tropical storm Irene.

If they could get to the head of the line.

By the deadline: Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.

Hundreds tried on Monday. Some got through. Many others went home with slips of paper (aka rain checks) enabling them to return Tuesday morning to a separate express line.

That’s what happened to Muata Langley (pictured with son Dakari, 2). Langley, a 23-year-old dancer, claimed he lost $200 worth of meat after Irene knocked out his electricity. He showed up outside the agency at 194 Bassett St. Monday and waited three hours. He got the slip of paper, returned Tuesday morning to the priority line to the right side of the front door, and got inside after 10 a.m.

Brittany Dash waited eight hours Monday to get that slip. The certified nurse, a mother of three, slept at home, returned at 7:15 a.m., and emerged from the office by 10:15 a.m. with $668 courtesy of the federal Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). ​“I’m going shopping and putting food in the freezer,” she proclaimed.

The crowd that remained outside Tuesday morning wasn’t as lucky. Most of them hadn’t shown up Monday during the day. They didn’t know if they’d get in. Many said they’d arrived around midnight. Some brought chairs to sleep in; at least one woman, who said she had to cancel a Labor Day cookout after hundreds of dollars of fish and steak spoiled in her freezer, reported that she indeed was able to catch some zzzs on the line.

She was one of some 100 to 150 people who braved the overnight and had reasonably good chances of making it inside the doors to pick up checks before the disbursements end at 3:30 p.m. The program had officially begun in the middle of last week; DSS processed 5,580 applications statewide including 1,708 from New haven from last Wednesday through Monday. But many folks heard about it only around Monday, creating a last-minute rush at district offices like the one on Bassett. (DSS spokesman David Dearborn said Tuesday that people who don’t get in by closing Tuesday will receive ​“rain check” vouchers for future processing. ​“No one who comes to the office during the announced application period will be turned away without being able to file an application for federal Disaster SNAP benefits,” Dearborn stated.)

The campers Tuesday morning spoke of having to hold their bladders overnight. ​“You don’t want to lose your place in line,” said Miriam, an unemployed woman from Middletown Avenue who declined to give her last name. (She’s at the center of the photo at the top of the story.) When the DSS office opened in the morning, security guards began ushering small groups of people inside to use the bathroom.

A few people cut in line overnight, but otherwise those assembled pulled together, said an unemployed man from East Haven (lat left in top photo) who claimed he lost $400 in spoiled meat.

Another man at that section of the line displayed the Compaq computer he’d charged up in advance of his midnight vigil. ​“Somebody saw the bootleg man before they came down here,” he said. That somebody had a copy of ​“Transformers” and the third ​“Planet of the Apes.” The movies went into the Compaq, and people gathered around to watch.

Some time around 1 a.m. a possum crossed Bassett as if to join the crowd. That spooked some of the people on line. Apparently the possum got spooked, too, and crossed back to the other side.

Some doughnuts and coffee were passed around at another point. One woman claimed the assembled actually sang ​“Kumbaya.”

The Independent could not confirm that last claim. Officer Bob Jones (pictured) did confirm that people on line kept cool overnight. Police spokesman David Hartman said officers had encountered some unruliness on Monday, but did not make any arrests.

Officer Jones was stationed on Bassett starting at 4 a.m. He had another officer with him. When DSS opened the doors, the police beefed up patrols to five cops outside and two inside the building.

By mid-morning the crowd had grown back to some 300 to 400 hopefuls stretching more than a block east toward the corner of Shelton Avenue. Unlike the people closer to the door, these people came arrived after sunrise. And they didn’t know if they’d make it inside by closing time. Jamaican-born First Student school bus driver Stanford (pictured; he declined to give his last name), who’s 55, said he had to work the morning shift before he could wait in line. He arrived at 9 a.m.; he would have to leave again by 1 p.m. to drive more kids. He said Irene cost him three to four days of wages.

Jacqueline Jones, a Yale Law School midnight-shift dining hall chef, had lasted only two hours Monday. ​“I lost my patience,” she said. She returned at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Here at the back end of the line people remained cheerful, summoning optimism. ​“Everyone’s conducting themselves very well,” reported Elizabeth Washington (center left in photo), a certified nurse’s assistant from New Haven. ​“Keep hope alive!”