Hope House
Under a plastic tarp among a stand of shrub oak trees somewhere in Mount Sinai, a raw faced weather-beaten man of 41, who looks much older, groggily rises to another day and steels himself for the ordeal that his life has become. If he is lucky he will be able to scavenge together enough cash for some takeout food and a bottle of vodka.
A mother in Coram returns from a hard day’s work and suspects the battle will soon begin again. Her fears are well founded, as she finds her 15 year old son still sleeping at 3 PM. Her child, anti-social and withdrawn has skipped school again and is very close to being expelled.
In Sound Beach a pregnant women lives and drinks alone in a basement apartment, two months behind on her rent. The only calls she gets, aside from an increasingly angry landlord, are from her abusive ex-boyfriend. Continue reading
James Laino 