Jonathan Rodriguez-Santiago doesn’t mind answering questions.
Especially when the answers can help bring compassion and context to why he and many others in the Erie region are without permanent homes.
Rodriguez-Santiago, 34, is originally from Puerto Rico. He’s done time in prison and came to Erie in 2008 because he has family here.
A recovering addict, Rodriguez-Santiago says he’s now clean. He currently works at a local manufacturing business.
On the morning of Jan. 26, after spending the night in a local shelter, Rodriguez-Santiago was at the Upper Room daytime homeless shelter, on the second floor of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, 1024 Peach St., answering questions about his circumstances as part of Erie County’s annual Single Point In Time count of the county’s homeless population.
On Jan. 25 and 26, a team of roughly 25 people, made up of both social services professionals and volunteers, visited homeless shelters, soup kitchens, makeshift encampments and scores of other locations throughout Erie County.