Posted on February 9, 2017 by Luke Winkie in Brooklyn Magazine Brooklyn Magazine, By Luke Winkie Cecilia Grant is not used to this. Ten years ago, when issues arose in her family, she made plans to relocate to Florida. Today, she considers that relocation one of the biggest mistakes of her life. When she returned to New York in the winter of 2013, rising rent prices and an unfriendly market made it difficult for her to secure a long-term lease. By December she was pushed into the city’s frayed network of social services. Grant says her record is spotless, but for the past three years she’s bounced through the government’s offerings of programs and shelters. Right now, at 57, she’s living on the streets for the first time in her life, doing her best to keep hope alive. “It’s very hard for me, I left this city during the Bloomberg era and I’m homeless simply because I was looking for an apartment. I’ve never been evicted, I don’t owe anybody rent, I don’t have chronic illnesses, I don’t do drugs, I’m not crazy. But this cold is getting to me, it’s affecting my bones being out here in the winter,” says Grant. “It’s affecting me psychologically, I’m optimistic to the nine, but waiting three years for housing, that’s like waiting three years to eat.”
