The Beggars of Yeshiva

Al Linder, age 54, grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey. His family, Orthodox, was wealthy. His grandparents owned a women’s coat factory in Hoboken. Al and his father worked at the factory, which was inherited by his parents when his grandparents died. Al completed high school at Hoboken High School but did not go on to college. It seemed that the family’s prosperity would be passed on to Al, ensuring him financial security for life.

His parents lost the business in 1979, and Al started to work at Queens Department Store in Hoboken, delivering furniture, televisions and appliances. When he lost this job in 1981, he had nowhere to go. On January 14th, 1981, he began his career as a collector of tzedakah at the Yeshiva uptown campus. This marks his 19th year at Yeshiva.

Al can be seen in the mornings and afternoons sitting on the bench in front of Furst Hall. In the evenings, he moves to the bench in front of the Main Building the Morgenstern dormitory.

A widower for nine years, Al and his 11-year-old daughter Sara live in an apartment on 178th Street in Washington Heights. While he won’t receive a pension until he is 62, his daughter receives Social Security Survivors’ Benefits for his wife, amounting to $328 per month. Their rent is $475. Al begs in order to pay the rest of the rent and other expenses.

Sara goes to Hillel Academy on scholarship. Al says, "My daughter doesn’t have to worry about going to college. My mother-in-law left a trust fund of $180,000 to my daughter, which she’ll be able to take out when she’s 18. She offered me $25,000 of it, but I won’t take it. I’ll be an old man, what do I need? At least I won’t have to worry about her going to college."

How much money does Al receive at our campus? " It depends on how long I stay. If I stay from 5 O’Clock to 10 O’Clock (Maariv), I make $50. When I was healthier, I’d go to 21st Street in Flatbush first, where I made $60-$65. But I don’t go anymore; I have bad legs."

Indeed, Al says he has a number of health problems, including diabetes, a diabetic leg ulcer and plenty of dental problems. He wears regular bandages covered by Ace bandages on his legs. They bleed every two to three years, when his skin dries.

Al’s daughter also has a history of illness. She has only one kidney and falls ill every so often, especially during winter. Combined costs of health care for his household can get steep. A Yeshiva graduate handed him an application for Medicaid a few months ago. The Medicaid he now receives covers 20% of his daughter’s medical costs, in addition to the 80% coverage from Medicare she was already receiving.

Al says he dreams of working for YU. "See, I could collect money from donors for YU—because I did very good in 19 years collecting for myself. But I could collect for YU and get millions upon millions of dollars—through my connections in Brooklyn and all over. All I would want: 15% of what I bring in - no salary. I’ll prove to YU how great I am... If I bring in $15 million a year, I’ve gotta get $750,000, which I think I’m entitled to if I bring that into YU."

Despite his reservations about more menial types of work, Al admits that if someone offered him a job as a janitor, he would take it and that if someone gave him another application for employment at YU, he would fill it out.

Richard Sieger, age 47, grew up in a middle-class New Jersey family. His mother was Conservative, his father Orthodox. He has been asking for help at YU for about four years. A college graduate, he is well educated and just a year ago was working on a real estate project.

Making and having made a fortune in real estate, he moved with his wife to peaceful Waltham, Massachusetts. They had two sons. Then there was the divorce. It devastated him. Clinical depression hit, and Richard found it difficult to perform even simple tasks.

"I couldn’t even tie my shoelaces," he says. He lost everything. Until a few months ago he had an apartment on 184th Street. Evicted, he is now homeless. A resident of Washington Heights is kind enough to let him sleep in his apartment, but every two weeks he is kicked out and has to find a place for the night; sometimes other people’s apartments, sometimes emergency rooms.

Richard also begs at Breuer’s. In addition, he does some odd jobs at Breuer’s and at a shul downtown. He says he receives about $12 a day begging.

So, Richard is homeless, and at age 47, has a decent education and looks like he can work. Why does he not have a full-time job? "I would be glad to take a job, if someone offered me one. Not an application or an interview, but a job. I made more money in a day when I worked than I do now in a week. I would rather work. I miss work."

"People say I should work at McDonald’s or something, but after having such high-rung jobs, I find it humiliating to do something like that. I would like to work at YU. I applied for a low-rung job but they rejected me because I was over-qualified."

Richard blames his inability to go through the job application process on the mild form of clinical depression he has. Recently, on the urging of a social worker, he started seeing a psychiatrist to be treated for this illness. He says, "I often cry. I mask my depression when I’m at YU, so you might not see it so easily."

"People complain that I have nice clothing. But this is the clothing I had before I got poor. They can’t expect me to get rid of it. Besides, many of the clothes I wear are donations from the students here."