When COVID-19 closed New York public schools and colleges, students and teachers were thrust into a new reality of online learning. For many students, the burden of keeping up with school has been amped up by having to share computers and small space, limited and even no internet access with family also dealing with life in quarantine. Some have also had to take on new and increased responsibilities of errands and grocery shopping, that now can take hours.

Some of the Trellis Crew, many of them students of color in public housing, where on top of multi-generational family housing situations, they are also enduring and living in substandard living situations, recently shared their stories of how COVID-19 has been impacting them.

~17 minute read

Have you ever had that one family member who never gets sick, so when they do it's concerning?

That is the current dilemma my family and I have been tasked with dealing with. My older brother has corona-virus. He has all matching symptoms and it’s affected the very way of life in my home. This invisible unwanted enemy that has been invading families homes and lives and taking loved ones away from each other has now entered my home, and it definitely affected my mental health to say the very least. The interaction that I used to have with my brother was through video games, sports debating,sneaker talk, and cultural debating. That has all been put on the back burner until he hopefully recovers. His room is located on the opposite side of the house which isn't close to mine but since we're in the same house it's not far. We've been talking but not in person, but by texting. We were texting about the first thing we’re going to do when this is all over, and he said he wants to take a walk to brooklyn bridge park to play basketball. When i read this message i smiled, but it's weird because he doesn't feel the same. He feels miles away. I've been feeling overwhelmed with the truth there is a possibility that we all might have it and we aren't feeling symptoms. The other truth I faced last night as I was cleaning my room and I found an old photo of me and him at a christmas party, and i shed a tear fearful of not knowing if he'll be able to take that walk to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Everytime i go to open a door in the house, I immediately remember that there's a possibility that the virus is on the door knob. This covid-19 virus has been dissecting the happiness that we have in our home slowly but firmly, and personally as a believer in Christ, I need to just be faithful in this time of worry.

Now that the coronavirus is a pandemic and made going outside impossible to go to school, school is now in my house. This isn't ain't new to me. I have been home schooled now for more than 4 years. If I was any other regular student going to school, I would've been done by now because of credits and hours term. Being home means I get less hours and less credits but then again; it kinda feels like college cause it's only one class I'm learning and it's for that whole two hours and a half I get. Before this crisis happened my teacher usually comes to my house and he gets his computer ready and I get mine ready to go.

We do paper work too but mostly everything is done now on the computer and saved on docs and pdf. He has given me work like algebra, geometry, writing, english, music, art, nutrition, physical education, financial math, living environment, and biology. There's probably more he taught me but I can't remember them all. He also would do powerpoints with me after I done the homework of the assignment and it's just to review the work or the chapter of the book. Homeworks are usually just text2mindmap because I need to learn how to make a good outline then to form that outline into an essay. Other kind of work I would do is multiple choices. I would usually do these at the end of an chapter of the book I was reading. And if the chapter didn't provided the multiple choices, the teacher would just make up his own.

The teacher would also play videos on his projector that he brings to demonstrate the certain type of work we was doing. If it was about music, he would play the required music piece that he assigned me to know about in the class. We would do many types of music genre such as Classical, Pop, Renaissance (which I guess is kinda classical but he told them not all of them are), to music of the late 1800's like rag, then the 1920's, 30's and so on with the oldies. He taught me until someone makes an actual time machine to go to the past; music is going to have to do with being that time machine. Music taught me what was trending in that time. To cigarrettes and watching Captain Kangaroo to Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and then to look at all my rolex. Music made me learn what people like during their time and what wasn't so popular.

That being said, now that my teacher can't physically come to my house; we now facetime and do the work with two screens. My computer has that available for somebody on the other side of facetime can see what I am doing on the computer. Unfortunately he has other students to attend to and sometimes have to cut my hours short but he leaves me plenty of work to do by myself and send him back usually before 3pm. He still uses his procector to show me the powerpoints or videos and I can't always see it so well but I am able to still learn about the topic.

I won't lie that the work is much harder to do

because I don't have that physical guidance but he still corrects me on face time just like he would if he was here. I hope soon this virus can be done and my life can be normal. I do miss having that physical bond of my teacher and the work with him here in my house. But he can facetime with me and I'll take it over nothing. I still get to learn and my education doesn't stop. In the end of day that's what really counts. My teacher told to keep up with physical education by doing a lot of pushups and jumping jacks and not to do in my best possibility binge eating if I can help it. So that's what school is like in my house with the current circumstances and yeah this sucks.

As a freshman at the CUNY College of Staten Island who dorms as soon as I found out about remote learning, I tried to get ahead of the curve and move about half of my things back to my Brooklyn home with the help of my mother. I already was having a challenging time wrapping my head around remote learning as someone who battles mental illness & being a visual hands on learning I felt that spending so much time at home doing the same thing everyday through a screen could very well be a recipe for disaster.

however, previously residing at Dolphin Cove dormitory was no easy feat and I was never the socialite. But I did know a few of the residents from Brooklyn and had quite a few of them on social media.

I discovered on March 24th a post of a letter stating that residents “living here had to be out by 6 pm tomorrow evening” not even 24 hours notice. And the excuse all along was that it’s a “mandated order from the state of New York “ however I think a formal email in the midst of the turmoil would have sufficed much more than word of mouth. There were students like myself that had returned home, some had other engagements or loved ones to look after and no time to return to move their items out.

In our absence despite the ban of visitors since March 12th 2 residents were tested positive for the virus. The whole situation seemed so surreal and at the time I was even more thankful I went home prior to that happening. However, what didn’t affect me before suddenly was my reality. To paint the picture for me, an 130 pound teenage girl with acute bronchitis had to return into a facility where the virus very well may still be, with many hi contact areas and move all of my belongings out of my apartment style dormitory with NO help. That night it was every resident for themselves. The usual wheelbarrows were missing, the students who were still residing there hurriedly hid them into their rooms for when they finally departed to make their transition smoother making people like me have a move out that much harder.

Not leaving until 3 am after my 10 pm arrival I was winded and discouraged and still had to come back tomorrow, pay the toll again and then finish the job. The alternative was having “staff” go into my room and pack my items for me and then “be able to pick up the items at a later date” however dolphin cove and the staff have never been reliable and having high ticket items like my desktop and television in my room, that was not a risk I was willing to take.

That next morning 3/25 we called prior to, just to clarify what we read online and staff confirmed it was indeed true. However the VP of student services sent out at email later saying that students had until Thursday which at the time sounded even better but it was just tomo at this point and after asking at the front desk they reassured us that we needed to be out the sooner the better. We had Dormitory staff saying one thing to us, emails saying another, no RAs or general manager or resident director in sight and I just couldn’t be happier to go.

Now I’m back home, my house is crowded with these items because that was a move nobody was prepared for and my body is still reviving from all of the heavy lifting. And we’re playing the waiting game to see when I will be refunded for my meal plan that is currently unused and my second semester lease. My tuition was fully covered I only was paying for this and I did NOT renew my lease because I was never satisfied with the way they handle business so I am eager to see how refunds will be managed. the Vice President for student affairs said we could expect information about that in the coming days but with all the uncertainty happening I don’t think I should expect much as of yet.

Room 308 was a sanctuary for quite some time but the hectic mess that was Dolphin cove will not be, so much for my typical freshman year.

As it has for hundreds of thousands of others, the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has
impacted me in a number of ways. Given the staggering amount of cases that are present in the United States, coupled with New York State being the epicenter of the virus, I and all New Yorkers are advised to practice social distancing. While doing this will limit the spread of the virus, the caveat is that people should stay indoors unless they must go outside. There is a silver lining in this aspect, however, as staying home more often has allowed others to do things they normally wouldn’t or couldn’t do. In my case, these are things such as binge-watching my favorite television shows, learning new skills like investing in the stock market and word processing programs, and doing more home workouts.
Secondly, the coronavirus has caused my college courses to move online; virtual assignments and video conferencing are now the way of completing the Spring semester at my school, St. Francis College. This means that until further notice, there will be no face-to-face contact between students and faculty. Once again, there is a silver lining in this as now, I do not have to wake up early for my Tuesday and Thursday morning classes.
Thirdly, the coronavirus has reinforced my commitment to being as sanitary as possible. This means that I am washing my hands even more often as well as sanitizing my clothes more often. I find it strange that it took a deadly, man-made virus to force people to do basic, sanitary
things such as wash their hands regularly and sneeze into their elbow as opposed to their hand, but I digress.

Lastly, the Coronavirus has made it harder for me to purchase items I use on a regular basis, such as hand sanitizer and various foods. Unfortunately, the outbreak has caused people to panic buy things they most likely do not need, and that has led to stores like Target, a store I frequent, to have empty shelves, shelves that were once filled with items just days prior. Also, it is difficult to go to my usual grocery store, Trader Joe’s, for my fruit, as there is always a long line, often outside of the store. My hope is that things get better, but clearly, these are difficult times for all impacted by COVID-19. [pictured above]