Single father of four a housing-crisis casualty: He’s homeless, jobless

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Daryl Wood, pictured here at a camp ‘a couple of summers ago,’ says that he has no home, no job, and he has mental-health issues. Wood grew up in Whitehall. (Submitted photo)

By Tim Farkas / For NYVT Media

Extreme effects of the housing crisis are undeniable.

No home, no job, mental-health issues.

That’s the grim status of Daryl Wood, according to interviews this past winter with the 37-year-old, who grew up in Whitehall and also has lived in Granville.

Now, he says, he spends most of his days on the streets of Washington County.

Evenings are a different story.

“I’ve spent some nights in my car; other nights I’ve spent couch-hopping,” he said.

Wood is not alone in his life struggles.

Data showing the number of homeless people in the area for 2022 were not available, but in 2019, there were 268 among Washington, Warren and Saratoga counties, according to the Homeless Shelters Directory, a nationwide organization that cited numbers from its database and from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

According to the directory, no homeless shelters exist in Washington County, but 403 beds are available to those without homes in the tri-county area, including through emergency shelters. Additional resources come through food pantries, schools and other places, said Tammy DeLorme, commissioner of the Washington County Department of Social Services.

But not everyone who faces homelessness is willing, or able, to use the available resources to improve their situations, she said.

“There are certainly homeless people that want to do anything they can to get out of their situations and make things better for themselves and their families,” DeLorme said. “And then there are other people who have had chronic crises and health issues that make it more difficult for them to be able to bounce back. There are all varieties of people that become homeless.”

In his part of that world, Wood said he is a single father of four who pays “an outrageous amount of money” in child support. He said he is trying to get the amount modified because he is jobless.

“Because I can’t pay it, I get hit with arrears,” lamented Wood, who said he was waiting for Social Security to decide on any disability payments because of his mental-health issues.

Wood said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorder, major depression, severe anxiety, chronic migraines and essential tremors, a neurological disorder.

Some people share details of their everyday lives on Facebook, but Wood hasn’t posted on his page since 2018 and said he uses the site only to keep abreast of his family and current events.

Wood emailed NYVT Media in November after the outlet had a post on its Facebook page asking for local people who had been impacted by the housing crisis.

In explaining his background, Wood said he has been unemployed since he left his job in the production department at GE Aviation in 2020 for health reasons. (The company could not be reached for comment about his tenure there.) Before GE, he said he studied software engineering at Strayer University in New Jersey but didn’t graduate.

Wood said he was forced into homelessness this past October when he couldn’t find affordable housing.

“Everywhere I look, housing costs are completely absurd these days,” he said. “I feel there are people taking advantage of available housing by asking for astronomical amounts of money to rent – rooms are going for $700 to $800 a month, and one-room efficiency apartments are going for well above that. One-bedrooms nearing $1,000 a month. Two and three bedrooms? Forget it – you need to make $60,000 a year just to afford them.”

The median monthly rent in Washington County was $893 in 2021, and the median household income was $63,869, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“You can’t even live paycheck to paycheck anymore,” Wood said. “There is not a chance for a single-income household to survive without help, and you can’t get help if you are near the poverty line.”

A total of 12.3% of Washington County’s population of nearly 61,000 lives in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. Of the four neighboring counties, only Rensselaer’s rate (12.3%) is as high. The others are Saratoga at 7.7%, Warren at 10.2% and Essex at 11.3%.

Wood said he gets government assistance for his daily life.

“I am currently receiving help with food and very minimal cash assistance,” he said. “So I’m barely scraping by.”

Thankfully, Wood said his homelessness doesn’t extend to the time he spends with his children.

“When I do have my kids every other weekend, I do have a stable roof over their heads thanks to friends and family,” he said, adding that, “unfortunately, I cannot live full-time with anyone.”

Wood said the housing crisis in this country “has caused and will continue to cause depression and anxiety issues for people who are struggling to get by.”

This past winter, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a plan to create 3,500 new housing units for New Yorkers with mental illness.

“We have underinvested in mental-health care for so long, and allowed the situation to become so dire, that it has become a public safety crisis,” she said in her State of the State address. “This proposal marks a monumental shift to make sure no one falls through the cracks.”

State Sen. Jake Ashby, whose district includes Washington County, called Hochul’s plan “a laudable goal.” But, he said, “It’s difficult to know whether it’s feasible or not until we see the governor’s executive budget proposal.”

Hochul is expected to release that plan this month, and by law she has until April 1 to negotiate the budget with New York lawmakers.

While the state’s leaders are figuring out how to divvy up billions, Wood is trying to overcome his own financial struggles.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said of high housing costs. . . . “It’s absolutely unfair.”

Back to “The Search for Affordable Housing”