Newark's character is etched in the face of Otis Williams, who spends his days in downtown Newark in front of Grace Church. Hard times and neglect have made him look older than his 49 years, but a small smile remains for those who greet him as they pass. His is the face of the city-weathered by time and circumstance but still plugging along for a better tomorrow.
The city has hardened Otis' life, but he stays here because Newark is the home that he knows best. When everything else in his life fell apart, it is from Newark that he sought shelter-even if the only shelter he found was on its streets.
And he is not alone. According to the 2000 U.S. census, New Jersey has 5,500 people who call the streets home. In and around Newark, which has a homeless population of 786, the homeless are a common sight.
For most of Otis' life, the city of Newark has been home. Born in Damascus, Ga., in 1953, he first came to Newark to visit some family members in 1955. He visited every year and stayed for good when he was four or five. It was a move that was made to ensure his survival.
"My mother told me she brought me here because I was really sickly," recalls Otis, sitting on his cold concrete seat that doubles as the steps to Grace Church along Broad Street. His yellowed eyes momentarily stray to the passing cars.
"My father was hung and lynched-yeah, they still did that kind of stuff back then-and she said I was really close to him.
"After he died I got very sick, and the doctors told her she needed to get me out of there if I were to live. That's why she brought me here. So, yeah, I guess you could say I came to Newark to survive."
In his early years, Otis did not just survive in Newark-he thrived. He remembers good times in school and says he enjoyed his years at Newark Street School and Central High School.
"School was fun," he remembers, a small smile on his weather-chapped lips. "I remember I used to like arithmetic. Did pretty well in it, too."
Yet, for all the fond memories he had of his youth, there were also remembrances that were less than pleasant-memories like the riots of 1967.
"I was just a kid during that time, about 13 or 14 years old," Otis says. "I didn't really understand what was happening. I just remember it being a scary time. Nobody wanted to go out of their houses because of all the looting that was happening."
While he didn't understand what the riots meant in 1967, he sees now that the violence was a mistake. Reflecting on the riots more than 30 years later, he says they didn't make any sense.
"We [African Americans] thought we were helping ourselves by rioting, but we just lost more than we gained," he says with a shake of his head. "The people took their businesses with them, and we lost our jobs. After the riots, people with businesses really didn't want to come to Newark."
Otis, however, was doing just fine-at least for a while. He recalls that he held a job as a tractor-trailer driver, worked with the Department of Customs, had a place in Montclair. He never married, but in all other respects he was doing quite well for himself.
Things began to spiral downward for him when he began drinking heavily. Soon, he found himself out of a job and out of a home. It was then that he decided to go back to the city that "was what I knew."
Broke and alone, Otis returned to Newark. But the city that sheltered him as a sickly child would not treat him the same way as an adult. Unable to find a home, he turned instead to the streets.
He has a brother who lives around the area, he says, but they are not close. His brother doesn't understand his situation, he says. His brother thinks he could do more with his life but doesn't know how hard things are for him, Otis says, so he chooses to stay away.
Instead, Otis spends his days on Broad Street, in front of Grace Church. He asks passersby for spare change. A few respond. One or two stop and talk to him, but most will walk past with just a nod or a smile and a brief "how are you doing?"
Otis acknowledges the greeting and returns it with a "how do you do?" of his own. It is, after all, better than the looks he receives from some people.
"People look at you like you want to do harm," he says with some bitterness in his deep voice. "They treat you like you're not worthy of living."
He says he is not looking to harm anyone. He asks for something if he needs it and leaves well enough alone if someone refuses to give him anything. Life is tough enough, he says, and he doesn't need to put himself through more trouble by ending up in jail.
At night, Otis finds shelter in the abandoned buildings along the downtown stretch of Broad Street. Those in the streets beyond Broad Street are dirty, smelly places-bad enough, he says, to make someone "regurgitate." When the weather gets unbearable, he opts for the Goodwill Home and Rescue Mission on University Avenue. He says he goes there once or twice a month, just to have a place to put his head down when it's too hot or too cold. He prefers the abandoned buildings because he says he doesn't like the crowding he finds in the shelter. (At the Goodwill Home and Rescue Mission, Minister Victor Barnes, evening supervisor, says that they have plenty of room, but that homeless people dislike the rules and loss of privacy that come with sleeping in a shelter.)
Life in the streets is not easy, Otis says, but his faith sustains him.
"I pray every day for God to keep me on track and not let me do anything stupid," he says. "That's how I keep going."
Otis has seen the city peak and decline, and now watches it pick itself back up. He has mixed feelings about this development.
"One day Newark is going to look different, more like New York City does now, but not quite because nothing is really like New York City. I don't think Newark will ever have quite the same amount of energy New York does," Otis says.
The change will be nice for the good people of Newark, he thinks, but he worries where people like him will end up once full-fledged development takes place.
"They [city government] are trying to attract a certain kind of people-the upper middle class, those who can afford it. That's going to move a lot of the little people out, and I don't know where we'll end up," he admits.
In the meantime, his struggle to survive continues, but not without some reflections on what could have been.
"If I could live my life over again and I could keep all the knowledge and wisdom I have now, I'd do it all over again," he says, scratching his itchy back against the church's iron fence. "If I could do that, man, ain't nothing's gonna stop me! I'd be far away from here. But, you know, it's always going to be part of me. It's always going to be home."
Fatima de Jesus graduated from Rutgers-Newark in 2002 with a major in journalism and media studies. She was a member of the Honors College.
