Barefoot Again, Homeless Man Wants 'Piece of the Pie'

[American_Jihad]

Barefoot Again, Homeless Man Wants 'Piece of the Pie'

Jeffrey Hillman hid shoes: 'They're worth a lot of money'

By Matt Cantor
Posted Dec 3, 2012

(Newser) – The homeless man who recently acquired a pair of $100 boots from a police officer is already barefoot again. "Those shoes are hidden. They are worth a lot of money," Jeffrey Hillman tells the New York Times, after reporters caught up with him in Manhattan's Upper West Side. "I could lose my life." He revealed mixed feelings about the moment that warmed hearts around the world. "I was put on YouTube, I was put on everything without permission. What do I get?" he asked. "This went around the world, and I want a piece of the pie."

Still, "I appreciate what the officer did, don’t get me wrong," he noted. "I wish there were more people like him in the world." And: "I want to thank everyone that got onto this thing.
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Barefoot Again, Homeless Man Wants 'Piece of the Pie' - Jeffrey Hillman hid shoes: 'They're worth a lot of money'

 

[The Infidel]

There is a reason folks like him end up, well.... Like him


Sad?

Yes... Very

 

[Plasmaball]

i can see why he would be in danger from other homeless.
He also feels used, not by the cop, but by media.

 

[Noomi]

He wants money, and I imagine he sold the shoes for drugs, which wouldn't surprise me.

 

[waltky]

Barefoot NYC Man Isn't Homeless...

Shoeless Man in Viral Photo Not Homeless: Officials
Tuesday, Dec 4, 2012 | Jeffrey Hillman, the barefooted recipient of boots from a caring NYPD officer, has an apartment in the Bronx, the I-Team has learned; Veterans program secured housing for Jeffrey Hillman

He may be shoeless, but he is not homeless. Jeffrey Hillman, the barefooted recipient of boots from an NYPD officer last week, has an apartment in the Bronx, NBC 4 New York's I-Team first reported. “He does have stable housing,” said Seth Diamond, New York City's homeless services commissioner. “We’ve worked with Mr. Hillman for years.” Hillman used to be homeless, but entered shelter in 2009 before moving into an apartment secured by Veterans Affairs in 2011, the I-Team has confirmed. He pays his rent using a lifetime voucher for homeless veterans and his Social Security income.

Despite his permanent home, Hillman panhandles in Times Square, usually without shoes. In fact, when an NBC producer spotted him Saturday night and snapped a picture, his new boots from Officer Lawrence Deprimo were nowhere to be seen. He's offered varying accounts of why he was not wearing them and did not mention that he had an apartment to call home. Hillman’s shoelessness and apparent homelessness touched DePrimo and many other sympathetic New Yorkers last week. “I understand why it could be frustrating for New Yorkers,” Diamond said. “They see a person in this situation and they think no one has been helping. Outreach teams continue to try to work with him, but he has a history of turning down services.”

But the challenges are greater than just putting a roof over someone’s head. The city's homeless population on the street suffers from a range of mental health and substance abuse issues. A small percentage of people who move from the streets into a home end up returning to the streets. But Hillman still lives in his apartment, according to city officials. They tell the I-Team they checked on him a few weeks ago, when a concerned New Yorker called 311 about a shoeless man in the rain. It's not clear why someone with brand-new boots would continue to go shoeless on the street when he has a home. Homeless experts speculate that in addition to the possibility of mental health issues or drug addiction, shoelessness might make for better panhandling.

Homeless experts hope the truth about Jeffrey Hillman won’t detract from DePrimo’s act of kindness, nor the need for people to seek help this winter when they see someone in need. "Shelter and a pair of shoes are a start, but easy access to quality services is critical to helping people reclaim their lives and not just simply have a bed," said Muzzy Rosenblatt, executive director of Bowery Residents Committee, a nonprofit that works in homeless outreach. The Department of Veterans Affairs provides ongoing services to Hillman, but would not share details about his situation because of confidentiality rules.

Source

See also:

Straphanger killed after being pushed in front of oncoming train in midtown Manhattan

Man Pushed to Death on NYC Subway; Han Ki Suk, 58, of Elmhurst had struggled to his feet after being pushed onto the tracks and was desperately trying to crawl back out of harm’s way when the downtown R train slammed into him, witnesses said.; Cops still seeking attacker

The hunt was on Monday night for a madman who shoved a Queens father to his death in front of a subway train in midtown as stunned witnesses watched in horror. Ki-Suk Han, 58, of Elmhurst, struggled to his feet after being pushed onto the tracks, and was desperately trying to get out of harm’s way, when the downtown Q train slammed into him, witnesses said. The nightmarish crime happened at 12:30 p.m. at the Seventh Ave. and W. 49th St. stop. Police said the motorman had no time to stop before hitting Han. “He gets back on his feet,” a police source said of the victim. “He’s waving to the train, ‘Stop! Stop!’ He tries to climb up onto the platform and the train hits him.”

Cops swarmed the station and surrounding area looking for the suspect, described by police as black, in his mid-20s with short dreadlocks. He wore a white T-shirt and a dark-colored beanie cap. Witnesses said they heard the attacker talking to himself before he screamed at Han — an argument that was captured on surveillance video — and then pushed him to his death. “He was saying, ‘Get out of here’ and ‘Stop being crazy,’ ” a witness said, recalling what the suspect was shouting at Han. “They started fighting and then he pushed him.” The suspect fled the crowded station as Han tried to scramble back onto the platform.

Another witness also heard the men arguing just before Han was shoved. “There was an argument. The pusher had his back to the wall,” the witness said. “You could see the train coming while he was on the tracks. It happened so quick.” Patrick Gomez, a private sanitation manager from New Jersey, said the sickening crime left him and other straphangers shaken to the core. “Everyone was screaming and then in shock,” Gomez said. Messenger William Van Alstyne, 32, of Brooklyn said he’ll never shake the gory scene from his memory. “He got caught between the train and the edge of the platform,” Van Alstyne said of Han. “He got dragged. You could see the trail of blood from where he got hit to where he stopped.” Han, a married father of a college-age daughter, died at St. Luke’s Hospital. His widow was being comforted by a priest Monday night at the family’s home on 52nd Ave. in Elmhurst.

Read more: Straphanger killed after being pushed in front of oncoming train in midtown Manhattan - NY Daily News

 

[jan]

<Sigh>...

 

[Katzndogz]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

 

[Ravi]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

Sending him off to war didn't seem to help him.

 

[Katzndogz]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

Sending him off to war didn't seem to help him.

If he hadn't VOLUNTARILY joined the military he wouldn't have the lifetime housing voucher he now has.

 

[saveliberty]

He's a conman. Doesn't wear shoes to help his trade.

 

[MikeK]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

The very presence of our homeless population is a shameful visual statement about the nature of American society. Supposedly the wealthiest, most freedom-loving nation in the world while our cities are filled with people like Hillman, barefoot and peddling on the streets or living in tent cities, and our prison census exceeds those of the most autocratic nations -- combined.

It is the most vivid statement of political hypocrisy I can think of. What it says is America is no longer beautiful but is becoming uglier year by year.

 

[whitehall]

You don't have to live on the street in the greatest Country in the world unless you want to. I guess the left gets their jollies about turning once beautiful parks into schitzophrenic nightmares where drug addicts and alcoholics expose themselves to little kids and pollute the ground with piss and vomit.

 

[Sallow]

He wants money, and I imagine he sold the shoes for drugs, which wouldn't surprise me.

I got into a fight with one of my more leftist friends about this..

I said it was a waste to directly give many homeless money.

Why?

Because they really don't have any idea what to do with it.

What needs to happen is a re-education of sorts.

Starting with personal responsibility.

 

[Sallow]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

Sure they can.

 

[Katzndogz]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

The very presence of our homeless population is a shameful visual statement about the nature of American society. Supposedly the wealthiest, most freedom-loving nation in the world while our cities are filled with people like Hillman, barefoot and peddling on the streets or living in tent cities, and our prison census exceeds those of the most autocratic nations -- combined.

It is the most vivid statement of political hypocrisy I can think of. What it says is America is no longer beautiful but is becoming uglier year by year.

What do you propose we do with people who choose to live on the streets? Jeffrey Hillman has a home. He has a family to help him. This is his choice. We either allow people the freedom to choose their own lifestyles, or what? There's no alternative but start locking people up, against their will, to improve their circumstances.

Billie Boggs was a homeless woman who was given a place to live, a job. Money. She stuck it out for two weeks and dumped both to return to the streets. It isn't political hypocrisy it is freedom. The freedom to utterly fail. The last example was Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice. He was given work as an announcer, a home, rehab to deal with his drug addictions, he walked out on it all to return to the streets.

The most well intentioned society in the world can't help these people. They can only be helped, if you call it that, by an autocratic and totalitarian culture that doesn't permit homelessness.

 

[Harry Dresden]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

The very presence of our homeless population is a shameful visual statement about the nature of American society. Supposedly the wealthiest, most freedom-loving nation in the world while our cities are filled with people like Hillman, barefoot and peddling on the streets or living in tent cities, and our prison census exceeds those of the most autocratic nations -- combined.

It is the most vivid statement of political hypocrisy I can think of. What it says is America is no longer beautiful but is becoming uglier year by year.

What do you propose we do with people who choose to live on the streets? Jeffrey Hillman has a home. He has a family to help him. This is his choice. We either allow people the freedom to choose their own lifestyles, or what? There's no alternative but start locking people up, against their will, to improve their circumstances.

Billie Boggs was a homeless woman who was given a place to live, a job. Money. She stuck it out for two weeks and dumped both to return to the streets. It isn't political hypocrisy it is freedom. The freedom to utterly fail. The last example was Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice. He was given work as an announcer, a home, rehab to deal with his drug addictions, he walked out on it all to return to the streets.

The most well intentioned society in the world can't help these people. They can only be helped, if you call it that, by an autocratic and totalitarian culture that doesn't permit homelessness.

Katz you ever tell the truth about anything?....Ted Williams has not returned to the streets....i looked at 6 stories about the guy.....none said he has gone back to the streets,everyone of them said he is still working and living with his girlfriend......

 

[saveliberty]

Even if most homeless are as Katz says, it still doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help find the few that can be reached and helped. For the rest, helping them means leaving them alone.

 

[Dreamy]

Even if most homeless are as Katz says, it still doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help find the few that can be reached and helped. For the rest, helping them means leaving them alone.

I agree. Not all homeless people are the same or are on the streets for the same reasons.

The media loves these feel good stories when in truth anyone who truly knows homeless people knows there are many places for them to get assistance and shoes and socks. Some choose to live as they do for a variety of reasons. Mental illness and substance abuse being the reasons often times.

 

[waltky]

Panhandler Confesses to NYC Subway Murder: Cops...

Suspect confesses in pushing death of Queens dad in Times Square subway station
Dec 4, 2012 - Police questioned 29-year-old collared on the street

A 30-year-old man confessed today to being the subway psycho who “launched” an innocent straphanger into tracks, where he was killed by an oncoming Q train, law enforcement sources told The Post. The suspect, Naeem Davis, was being questioned today in Manhattan, in connection to the grisly death of Ki Suk Han, 58, yesterday afternoon. The man was picked up on 50th Street near Seventh Avenue by a transit police captain, who was on a coffee break at 1:30 p.m. and ran over to grab him. Davis confessed to shoving Han into tracks, though he's not been formally charged yet, law enforcement sources said. Han, of Elmherst, Queens, desperately tried to scramble back to the platform as onlookers screamed, shouted and frantically waved their hands and bags in a bid to get the downtown Q train to stop at around 12:30 p.m.

Ki Suk Han, 58, of Queens frantically tries to climb to safety yesterday as a train bears down on him in Midtown. He was fatally struck seconds later.

The man being questioned by cops was identified as a 30-year-old street vendor from Queens, according to law enforcement sources. Post freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi — who had been waiting on the platform of the 49th Street station — ran toward the train, repeatedly firing off his flash to warn the operator. “I just started running, running, hoping that the driver could see my flash,” said Abbasi, whose camera captured chilling shots of Suk’s tragic fight for his life. The train slowed, but a dazed and bruised Han still wound up hopelessly caught between it and the platform as it came to a halt. A shaken Abbasi said the train “crushed him like a rag doll.” “It's one of those great tragedies, it's a blot on all of us,” Mayor Bloomberg said today. “And if you could do anything to stop it, you would. But the good news is it happens phenomenally rarely.”

Dr. Laura Kaplan, a second-year resident at Beth Israel Medical Center who was also on the platform, sprang into action, taking off her coat, grabbing her stethoscope and rushing over to try an administer CPR with the help of a nearby security guard. “It was terrifying, but you run on adrenaline,” Kaplan told The Post. “There was no pulse, never, no reflexes.” “I heard what I thought were heart sounds,” she added. “We started compressions, which is half of CPR. We were unable to perform rescue breathing [the other half of CPR] because there was blood coming out of his mouth. He wasn’t in the right position [for full CPR] and there was just no way to get him out of there.

MORE

 

[Noomi]

These kinds of people can't be helped. They should be left to live or die as they wish because there is nothing that anyone can do to change their circumstances. Helping him by giving him shoes didn't help him at all.

Giving him shoes only helped to contribute to his drug or alcohol problem or whatever he has.

I am not surprised he's a lying prick. He has a home, but sucks money from the public by pretending to be homeless.