Our longest-serving staff member, Toni Cipriaso, reflects on her over thirty years with CFH and how the organization has grown over the years. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

What is your title and how long have you been at CFH? I’m the IT Field Support Coordinator and I’ve been here for over 30 years.

Congratulations! You are the longest-serving employee at Care For the Homeless. What does your role entail? Thank you! My role entails technical support, assisting new users, installations at any of our locations. Pretty much anything that has to do with permissions, networking, etc.

What did you do before CFH? I’ve worked several jobs, but pretty much clerical ones, and I worked as a driving instructor. I wanted to cut down on my work hours and also do something I would consider more worthwhile.

How has your role at CFH changed over the years? Part of it is our growth. In the beginning, I was the accidental techie. And we didn’t really do much then because it was in a small room—there was no networking, no nothing. I started out as a data entry clerk and we used to enter data manually. We had paper registration forms and paper charts and all that stuff. And then we grew and we had a network, and there was more maintenance when it came to networking and data entry. So it’s definitely a completely different role now.

How have you seen CFH change over the years? It was a mom-and-pop shop! (Toni laughs.) I mean it. It was just one office with four, maybe five employees, and we had a bunch of other people working for us as subcontractors. The main office basically was for bookkeeping and making sure that we had money to give to the rest of the team, but we didn’t have them as employees—they were subcontracted. We didn’t employ them.

And from there, we added Susan’s Place, so there were more people. We added more than one data entry person, because it got to be too much. We saw in the beginning, maybe 7,000 to 8,000 individuals. These are all subcontracts, though; it wasn’t us seeing them, but the subcontractors seeing them. And then after that, we got our own Article 28 licensure, which enabled us to open the clinics—what we now call our “health centers.” So that added more people, and that made it a bigger network. The locations are not close to each other, so they’re everywhere.

Why do you think CFH’s work is important? It provides primary care. Because in the beginning—I’m sure there were people who would just tend to go to the emergency room for a fever or something worse than that. At least with Care For the Homeless, you tend to be seen before anything tragic happens, before it becomes an emergency. It’s like having your primary care doctor even if you are undomiciled or without a permanent address or without a job. So it’s important because it helps them prevent anything catastrophic from happening, so it becomes a center to stay healthy.

How does it feel to see the organization mark its 40th year of service? We’ve grown so much and we’ve added more programs and it has become great, but it’s also an indicator that we have not really ended homelessness in New York. The need is still there. It would be great if the need is met and we don’t have to exist.

Thank you so much, Toni, for taking the time.