Unsheltered Love
Advance praise for Unsheltered Love
With a pandemic raging, our nations cities under siege and residents sheltered in place, Traci Medford-Rosow and her husband, Joel, see what no one else was looking forhomeless men and women--and take a leap of faith to show the unsheltered love. Daily walks in their neighborhood led them to become involved with new friends that most in their city shunned and even feared. Traci became especially close to a battered and abused homeless woman named Maggie while Joel dreamed of a city where no one goes hungry or sleeps on the streets. Handing out homemade sandwiches to strangers, they did not look away from distress. While nobody can help everybody, they proved that everybody can help somebody. As you turn the pages of this well-written and hopeful story, keep an open mind and eyes for ways to make a difference. Unsheltered Love is worthy of your time.
--Ron Hall, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Same Kind of Different as Me, Workin Our Way Home and What Difference do it Make?
This true story is as hopeful as it is heart-wrenching. It takes place on the fringe of society where most of us dare not look. The author did more than look. Surviving on the streets of New York City is a difficult life, during a pandemic it is a virtual death sentence. Before long, the reader is immersed in an unimaginable world fraught with peril. We meet some of its braveyes, braveinhabitants, learn their stories, and see them through the eyes and hearts of the author and her husband. They took a personal interest in each and every one they met and offered something that is in dangerously short supply on the streets. I was so moved by this compelling story of hardship and hope that my heart would not let me put it down.
David Homick, author of Broken Angels, Reason to Live , and From Time to Time.
When Traci and Joel begin handing out sandwiches on the streets of New York City, they are drawn into the lives of nine homeless people. Unsheltered Love is a powerful story of how one couple makes a difference during the height of the pandemic. This groundbreaking story, filled with insight and inspiration, gives us a glimpse into the transformation that is possible when people look beyond the face of poverty and desperation into the heart of humanity.
Ann Campanella, bestselling author of Motherhood: Lost and Found, Celiac Mom and What Flies Away.
Like Alice down the Rabbit Hole, Unsheltered Love drops us into the surreal world of homelessness, filled with characters no less crazy than the Mad Hatter. Only these characters are real and living on the streets of New York! Author Traci Medford-Rosow shows us all how someone, just like us, a neighbor and a fellow traveler, decided to grab hold of anonymous outstretched hands during this strange pandemic, to provide human connection and support, and eventually, a path upward, out of the rabbit hole of homelessness.
Linda Heagy, Hand in Hand by Glynn.
Traci Medford-Rosow dares to get involved with the homeless in New York City during the pandemic. Highly motivating, this book is heart wrenching and necessary to read to understand street plight. A real story about real people. Simply superb.
Gail Gessert, Ph.D. Educational Psychology.
Unsheltered
LOVE
Homelessness, Hunger, and Hope
in a City under Siege
TRACI MEDFORD-ROSOW
With Journal Excerpts by Maggie Wright
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NEW YORK
LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER
Unsheltered Love
Homeslessness, Hunger, and Hope in a City under Siege
2023 Traci Medford-Rosow
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Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com
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Dedication
For Richard Kelley (June 29, 1953-March 18, 2021)
and
Jan Vanderheiden Jimenez (July 24, 1964-September 15, 2020)
Acknowledgments
First, Id like to thank my husband, Joel, for his courage in walking the city streets with me during the pandemic. Maggie Wright, Im especially grateful that you let me into your life, and eventually into your heart. You are an inspiration for all homeless people. I am also beholden to all the other homeless men and women who are part of this story. They shared their stories with us and opened their hearts to our love. Next, many thanks to Maggies mother who helped me understand Maggie. To my early readersJoel Rosow, Ron Hall, Peter Richardson, Linda Hedgy, Anne Stembler, Gail Gessert, Carri Rubenstein, Susan Suslow, John Boselli, David Hancock and Ann Campanellayour input and suggestions were invaluable. To my editor, Sarah Saffian, as always, your skill is unmatched. My proofreader, Danielle Gasparro, who never misses a comma, thank you. To Bonny Fetterman, thank you for believing in this story when no one else did. Last, but not least, much gratitude to the MJ team.
Authors Note to Readers
This is a work of nonfiction. Most of the events took place between March 2020 and October 2021. The names of the homeless people and their case workers have been changed to protect their privacy. The characters are representative of the group of homeless people my husband and I befriended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following each chapter is a journal entry written by one of the homeless women we met. She shares the story of her descent into homelessness and her rise out of it. Her pen name is Maggie Wright.
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
--P RESIDENT F RANKLIN D ELANO R OOSEVELT
M AGGIE W RIGHT , J ANUARY 2022
Professor Barrett entered the room and smiled at me. She had a kind face, which put me at ease. As we went around the room and introduced ourselves, I wondered what I would say when it was my turn to speak. Should I tell my fellow classmates who I really was? A homeless woman. At least I was no longer living on the street. I took a deep breath. I could do this. I was back in college, back on the road to reclaiming who I once was. Nothing could stop me now.
PROLOGUE
The first time I saw Maggie she was busy sweeping the most unlikely placethe sidewalk on the corner of Park Avenue and 30th Street. The New York Citys natural hum seemed to go silent as I paused to take in her appearance: tattered clothes, dirty stocking cap, shifting gaze. But it was her hands that held my attention. Covered in grime, tightly gripping the handle of a broken broom, she was intent on sweeping the area around her makeshift home, as if this one vestige of domesticity might keep her from falling into the abyss that had become her reality.
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