Former NBC News Man Is Now Broke and Homeless

Once upon a time in New York City, Sherman Jackson lived at the glittering heights of public life in a privileged place of bold-faced names and media stars. For a time, he appeared on TV sets citywide as a newsman at NBC. Later he appeared on-air as a press secretary for some of the biggest politicians in the city. The schools chancellor. The parks commissioner. Controller candidate Herman Badillo. He stood in front of cameras and partied with reporters, shaping the narrative of the city itself. From the 1970s into 2000, Jackson's quotes appeared in every newspaper in town. In the pre-internet era, he was interviewed countless times on radio and TV. He carried an impressive address book filed with the private numbers of big name politicians who relied on his advice. He spoke with the authority of a major player, a savvy insider. And then it all went south.



Things happened. Situations changed. Life, as it sometimes does, took a turn, and Jackson came to realize that for some of us, everything you think you will have forever suddenly isn't there anymore. And so on Friday, Jackson, now 70 years old, awoke once again in a big open dormitory room along with 24 other men, a resident of a city-run homeless shelter hard by the entrance to the BQE. This is his ninth month in a shelter, and he has not yet found a way out. Last week when a Daily News reporter asked him if he ever thought he would be where he is now, he could not find the necessary words to answer. Instead he spoke of all the places he'd been, the famous people he knew, the amazing times he'd had. He simply could not cope with the question in person. Instead he took some time and did what he used to do for a living — he wrote it down and emailed it to the Daily News.



"While I had ups and downs in my life and career, being in a homeless shelter is something that was unfathomable and would never have occurred to me," he wrote. "Even now, it's surreal. Every day starts with some sort of conflict, and every day I awaken hoping it's all been a nightmare — only to realize it's real." In his new home, a men's shelter in downtown Brooklyn, he says the residents fight over everything. A perceived glare. The lights. What's on the TV set that, at times, is tuned to the evening news — a program Jackson once knew well. Half Puerto Rican, half white, he went to work on-air for NBC's local affiliate on Channel Four in 1971 at the age of 21 fresh out of Columbia Journalism School. He later jumped to Channel Five, which was then owned by a now-defunct company called Metro Media. From there he jumped into public relations. His job put him in the media maelstrom every day.



For years, he worked multiple freelance gigs for venues such as Spanish-language newspapers and New York 1, living in a rent-stabilized Upper West Side apartment. In 2008 his landlord was offering him a big check to move, so he took the buyout and moved in with his son in Florida. This did not work out. His son, he says, kept taking what little money he earned as a freelancer and from a $2,100 monthly Social Security benefit he collected due to a chronic stomach disease that's hobbled him for years. After a fight over money, he decided it was time to move back to the Upper West Side apartment once rented by his mother and now occupied by his sister and her boyfriend. For the next seven tumultuous years, the three adults tried to live in the one-bedroom at Columbus Ave. and W. 71st St. With his illness, he could no longer find freelance work and was living only off his benefit check. He paid his sister $570 a month.



The relationship soon fell apart. He says his sister is mentally unstable and began to call 911 on him, accusing him of a long list of outrages. In 2016, he says she physically attacked him, and this time he called the police. She was arrested and at the precinct began leveling more accusations against him. This time she got a protective order barring him from her apartment. He moved back in with his son, who was now in Staten Island, and in April 2017, he obtained a protective order against his sister. By July his health was deteriorating along with his relationship with his son. Again, Jackson says, he was forced to move out. This time he relocated to a cheap hotel. The hotel bills soon began to eat up his benefits check, and he found himself standing outside the foreboding 30th Street Men's Shelter next to Bellevue Hospital in Kips Bay, Manhattan. On Aug. 8, he entered "the system."