In This Class, Sharing Stories That Once Felt Unspeakable

Working out her autobiography to deliver in a class, Mona-Lisa Marrero, 48, tried several beginnings, then settled on: “Once upon a time, there was a girl. My name is Mona-Lisa Marrero, and this is my story.”

She gave the talk, but mulled that narrative choice recently, recalling that she had gotten choked up speaking about her first home and the child she had been there. “I should have kept it in the third person,” Ms. Marrero said. She paused for a second, imagining what it would have been like to refer to herself as “Mona-Lisa” and “she” and “her” instead of “I” and “me” and “my.” She shrugged. Neither form would have worked as a heat shield from the past.

“I would have been stunted in that other aspect, too,” Ms. Marrero said.

She kept on, though, speaking to others who had been on the streets, and who also had lived to tell the tales. They told their stories in classes that were built around speaking about lives that often felt unspeakable. The classes, organized by people at Catholic Charities of New York, began nearly three decades ago for men and women who were homeless, unmoored from family. The 56th session finished last week.

Mario Pimental, 55, worked as a doorman in the 1980s. After the death of his wife, he said, he took every hour of overtime that he could get. He poured drugs on top of the grief he did not utter, and managed to lose a decent job with benefits, a daughter and his apartment. That brought him to the Bellevue Men’s Shelter. In that system he spotted a chance to get into the Catholic Charities classes, which are operated under the prosaic rubric of “Education Outreach Program,” if he cleared an interview with the director, Alison Kelsick.

“Hearing other people’s stories kept me glued to this place,” Mr. Pimental said. “I absorbed so much negativity, like a sponge, I was able to squeeze it out. Just being able to push on was a miracle.”

Over 12 weeks, he figured out his own story, got in shape to find a job and a place to live. Ms. Kelsick’s classes meet twice a week, and each one begins with a meal, then moves on to the storytelling. Food is necessary but not sufficient; not by bread alone. And not just stories, either — the students are offered mentorship, job connections, housing chances.

Once upon a time: Ms. Marrero’s life has been full of shards, starting with a seriously disturbed mother who mused about not having flushed Mona-Lisa and her sister down the toilet, the scar of an extension cord on her sister’s cheek, foster homes, spells with a bootlegger who was “so-called in love with me,” group homes and a crack house where she was sent by a man to the roof to serve as bait. “I was able to sleep and eat because various young men liked me,” Ms. Marrero said. “Whatever that meant.”

She spent two decades “on the run,” she said, and was referred to the classes by social workers. “I am educated about me,” Ms. Marrero said.

Events like public protests roll past like tumbleweed and are gone from sight. Here’s one that didn’t vanish. One rainy day in the 1980s, homeless people and advocates gathered in City Hall Park, said George Horton, director for social and community development at Catholic Charities in New York. After a downpour, many advocates headed home. Homeless people stayed behind, along with some Catholic sisters and others. Stories were swapped. An encampment remained for six months. “It became clear that people had a voice about paths into homelessness and ways to address it,” Mr. Horton said. An interdenominational group, Life Experience and Faith Sharing Associates, was formed by the sisters, Teresa Skehan and Dorothy Gallant.

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in the South Bronx, James Addison said he got involved with drugs and the gangs of the day — the Royal Javelins, Black Spades, Savage Nomads. “Made a lot of money,” Mr. Addison said. “Blew a lot of money.” The mother of his son died of an overdose when the child was 10. Desperate to reconnect with the boy, Mr. Addison, in between jails and shelters, learned about the education program. “I’m a street person,” Mr. Addison said. “I had never seen a community like this.” He went on to become a minister and to lead the life experience program founded by the two sisters.

Dina Smalls, now 52, “let the drugs go in 2000,” she said. “But I was in a circle I couldn’t get myself out of.”

About five years ago, she found her footing on paths that had once been unwalkable.

“Until I came here, I didn’t realize it wasn’t only me,” Ms. Smalls said. “Now I realize it happens to boys, too. That there was something behind it. There were stories behind those faces.”