A Stopover in Tribeca for Two Homeless People and Their 10 Cats

In Tribeca Park, Kirk Wilcox talks to the cat he calls Princess, one of 10 felines that travel with him and his partner, Angela. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Kirk Wilcox and Angela (no last name given) are a homeless couple who have been roaming the city since Sept. 30, when they were evicted from a Parkchester apartment in the Bronx, according to Wilcox. Their companions are 10 cats that live in two wooden travel boxes constructed by Wilcox, a former carpenter. On the morning of Dec. 21, the couple stopped briefly in Tribeca Park, at Beach Street and West Broadway, to feed the cats and clean their bowls and Kitty Litter boxes before moving on in a continuous search to find a place for the 12 of them to stay. (He said he could be contacted at 929-453-7289.) Below, Wilcox talks about living homeless with the couple’s brood of cats.

We sleep in the subway. Try to jump on at 11 at night and get out before rush hour. We were a little late today and it was crowded when we got off at Chambers Street here.

We just go around trying to get donations to survive. If we get enough donations we can get some place—it doesn’t have to be anything fancy at all. We’re looking for the cheapest possible place we can get to put a roof over us and be able to let the cats out a bit more.

This is like a new park to them. If we were up in the Bronx, we could let them out there. We open up the door and let them out and they run around in a little woodsy area in a park and then come back. We won’t let them out here. We might get a ticket. Trouble is you get a fraction of a percent of the people who call up and complain and then they spoil it. It’s sad because they got no idea what an abused cat looks like.

Animal control, they’ve investigated these cats. They know they’re not abused. If these cats were abused they would be shaking, they would be crying, they’d be trying to get out. See, this one is giving his little sister a bath there.

We were in Central Park and a very nice ranger came up and said, “We got a complaint and you gotta stay outside the park.” He said we could put them on a leash and walk them inside.

This is the first time we’ve been here and we’re not going to stay too long. We’ll just keep moving.  We just fed them with the harness and leash on them just to get them a little used to it. They got to get used to these harnesses. That’s the problem. These cats are wonderful. They’re well behaved, and I wish we didn’t have to put the leashes on them but police say we have to. Petco on Chambers Street gave us a really good deal on these harnesses and gave us some free food.

Libby here, she’s just amazing. I can be sitting on the park bench and call her, “Libby come here,” and she come running over, jumps in my lap. She fussed the most because she didn’t want to be in that harness. Princess is the white one. She and Mr. Lion have been the best behaved. Sometimes she likes to jump up on me and hug me, and other times she doesn’t.

There are so many stray cats on the street. If people would go and feed them, build little shelters when it gets cold, put them in the corner of their property or something. Cats are great for getting rid of mice and rats. If people realized that they’d like them a lot better. There are people who don’t like cats and it’s sad because they’re so wonderful. And these cats have amazed us. If they weren’t so good we wouldn’t have made it this far, you know?