Shams DaBaron, 51, has struggled with homelessness, he says, since he was 10 years old. On a bench in Harlem; on friends’ couches; in the New York City shelter system; next to the mother of his children; and since June, in the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side — wherever he sleeps, it’s rarely uninterrupted.
Many nights, DaBaron has bad dreams, and many mornings, he wakes up feeling disoriented or lethargic. He’s physically safer in his private hotel room than in the shelter, he says, but just as restless. He pushed to eliminate the Lucerne Hotel’s 3 a.m. welfare check, which kept him on edge, but he still gets a knock on his door every night at midnight, and is woken up for breakfast at around 6 a.m. Usually, he’s been awake for an hour or so anyway. “For somebody that’s suffering from PTSD like me, or is a light sleeper, I stay up for the knock so I don’t get startled,” he said. “I feel that my physical health is compromised because of the lack of sleep.”
