Neediest Cases

ILLNESSES FAIL TO DAMPEN A DRIVE FOR A BETTER LIFE

Norma Millan speaks of the days when "I used to be active," and when
her excursions through the city were a pleasure.

"I used to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, one of my joys in
summertime," said Ms. Millan, 52. "Now I can't walk two blocks without
getting out of breath." She cited her many ailments: diabetes, asthma,
high blood pressure.

Nonetheless, for the last year, Ms. Millan has been journeying around
the city despite her energy-sapping illnesses, panting her way up
subway steps and often having to walk much more than two blocks to get
to her destination.

She lives in a homeless shelter in Harlem with her 15-year-old son,
Keenan, and makes the trips in search of a decent and affordable
apartment for them.

Finding an apartment is her No. 1 priority, Ms. Millan said recently.
Improving her health is second. She spoke of reminders of mortality;
of her seven siblings, she said, three died of illness. A sister had a
heart attack at 53, another sister died from a brain tumor at 41 and a
brother died from AIDS at 39. Another brother, 44, has lung cancer.

Ms. Millan told her story at the Pelham Fritz Apartments, a shelter
for homeless families operated by the Children's Aid Society, one of
seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

She and Keenan, the younger of her two sons, who is a student at
Automotive High School in Brooklyn, have been living at the shelter
since September of last year, after they and Luis, the brother who
suffers from cancer, were evicted from their Brooklyn apartment, Ms.
Millan said.

They could no longer pay the rent, she said, after the landlord raised
it beyond what her welfare payments enabled her to afford. She was on
welfare because her illnesses kept her from working, she said, and
Luis was neither working nor receiving welfare benefits. He is now
living in a rehabilitation facility.

Ms. Millan, who grew up in Brooklyn, said the eviction that left her
homeless was not the first dire situation in her adult life. An
earlier episode occurred in the 1980s, she said, when she was living
in Lawrence, Mass., with her fiance, the father of her older son,
Rafael, who is now 26. The man, who veered from low-wage jobs to
unemployment, was often despondent and would "take it out on me," she
said, telling of beatings he inflicted when he was drunk.

She left him after they had been together for five years, she said. "I
took Rafael and got on Amtrak and came back to New York."

She began using heroin and cocaine at age 30, during the abusive
relationship, she said, and became addicted. She said she conquered
the addiction by going through a methadone-maintenance program after
she returned to New York.

Keenan was born after a shorter relationship with another man, she
said, adding that Keenan has had no contact in recent years with his
father, who does not contribute to his support.

Ms. Millan, who is also being treated for depression and bipolar
disorder, receives $398 a month in welfare payments and $150 a month
in food stamps. Medicaid covers her and Keenan's medical expenses.

She does not pay rent for their one-bedroom apartment at the shelter,
which the nonprofit Children's Aid Society operates with city money.
Ms. Millan sleeps in the living room.

"I've been trying to get into public housing for 10 years," she
said.

But with low turnover and a long waiting list for such apartments, the
city's Housing Authority gives priority to low-income people who have
needs that it considers more urgent than those of people like Ms.
Millan -- to current victims of domestic violence, for example, and
people whose housing conditions directly threaten their lives because
of their illnesses or disabilities. That is a category that Ms. Millan
says she has not been placed in.

Hence her trips to privately owned buildings. There was a long subway
ride to the Rockaways in Queens, where, she said, the apartment turned
out to be nine blocks from the subway station and thus unsuitable for
her. Or shorter trips to apartments that were "like closets," and to
apartments that were unaffordable because the rent was more than the
welfare program's maximum rent payment, and her monthly cash benefit
for other living expenses is too little to let her use part of it for
additional rent, she said.

Cathleen Clements, a spokeswoman for the Children's Aid Society, said
the maximum rent that the welfare program currently paid for a
two-person household seeking to move from a homeless shelter was $820
a month.

Meanwhile, Ms. Millan has also had concerns unrelated to housing and
health. When the school year started in September, she said, Keenan,
who plays on Brooklyn Automotive's football team, was depressed by the
condition of his off-the-field wardrobe.

"He said, 'Mommy, I need clothes,' " she recalled, but she lacked the
money to buy him any.

So Judy Quinones, their social worker at the Children's Aid Society,
tapped the Neediest Cases to buy $200 worth of Old Navy gift cards,
which Ms. Millan said went for sneakers, slacks, a hooded sweatshirt
and other items for Keenan.

"When he got the clothes," she said, "he was very excited about it."