This Deal teenager interviewed homeless people and wrote a book

When Zac Levy, 16, from Deal, walked into a 7-Eleven with his father on a hot summer day, someone abruptly cut them off in line. A woman, only a few years older than him at the time, couldn't afford Arizona tea. It was evident. Zac's father bought the tea and the woman rushed out of the gas station. Zac noticed how she picked the tea and ran away as if it hadn't been paid for. “When we left the store we realized she was homeless,” Zac explained, “she was sitting on the side of the street with meager belongings and I didn't understand how, at this point in life, someone could find themselves [houseless].”

This incident left Zac disturbed. Growing up in the close-knit Syrian community, what he witnessed was an anomaly. So when he returned home, he did what his father had taught him. He searched scientific articles and texts online to understand the phenomenon. Finally, he turned to the best sources: the homeless themselves. “I had my first interview [with a houseless person] before my first day of freshman year of high school,” Zac said. He was not afraid to talk with these people, and especially to engage with them in more controlled settings.

“I did all my interviews at shelters,” Zac said. His family was concerned for his safety, so he coordinated with community resources. He conducted his first interviews at a shelter for HIV-positive men in Asbury Park, New Jersey. While he felt mostly comfortable, he experienced an anti-Semitic incident.

“As part of this project, I founded a winter clothing collection. So I collected hundreds of bags, put up signs, and went to people's homes,” in tandem with community ally Cherry Elliot, an African-American Muslim woman. “She was extremely helpful with everything,” Zac said. One day, while they were both sitting outside on a main street in Asbury Park, someone approached her and said, “Are you Muslim?” Why do you associate with these Jews? You should not associate with Jews. Cherry replied, “We are fighting the same fight together, we are trying to help the community. » The attacker realized that Cherry, Zac and the others present were lined up. “This guy wasn’t even homeless, just a regular anti-Semite,” Zac said.

Zac's new book Project Unhoused: One teen's journey to share the stories of America's homeless recounts conversations with homeless people. Through these discussions, Zac was able to identify the causes of homelessness. Zac noted that drugs and alcohol are “very rarely the primary cause.” He particularly remembers James, whose neglectful and drunken father left his agoraphobic mother penniless. James was attacked one night and suffered a serious jaw injury, followed by unemployment and the untimely death of his brother in a car accident. Then Hurricane Sandy hit, leaving Zac homeless. It was a hellish storm and James, as a result of his injury, became addicted to morphine, which eased his emotional pain. For the most part, none of this was James' fault. Zac sees this.

He attributes homelessness to the inability to self-regulate, coupled with unstable community support systems and, frankly, a bit of bad luck. “In our community we have very strong family ties, we have large extended families who are always there for us if anything goes wrong. We have amazing parents who teach us what we need to know about the world before entering the workforce and beyond… We have a huge safety net within the community that is always ready to help us to recover and get back on our feet,” he said. . Zac recognizes the uniqueness of this experience, hence his dedication to understanding people from very different backgrounds.

From a young age, Zac's father instilled volunteering as “the most important thing” in his life. “We're always working with different community organizations,” whether it's delivering chairs and siddurim for shiva houses or working with people in palliative care. And although Zac comes from an insular community, his parents never taught him to distinguish between those inside the community and those outside it, “there wasn't much distinction depending on 'place where we volunteered'.

Zac's first book Project Unhoused: One teen's journey to share the stories of America's homeless was released on October 5, 2023. You can find it on Amazon.

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