‘A Failure of Our Policies’: Vigil Honors New Yorkers Who Experienced Homelessness, by Emma Whitford, 26 December 2023, citylimits.org.
"The assembled crowd also heard from Meghan Garven, an independent living specialist with the organization BRC, who eulogized her friend and client Omar Gnyp. Gnyp died of an aneurysm in March at the age of 44. He was in a rehabilitation facility at the end of his life, but had been a familiar face to street outreach workers in Jamaica, Queens.
"The assembled crowd also heard from Meghan Garven, an independent living specialist with the organization BRC, who eulogized her friend and client Omar Gnyp. Gnyp died of an aneurysm in March at the age of 44. He was in a rehabilitation facility at the end of his life, but had been a familiar face to street outreach workers in Jamaica, Queens.
Standing 6’6”, Garven said, Gnyp was hard to miss. He loved movies, and once recounted the entire plot of Top Gun to her, sound effects and all.
“Every Sunday we would talk on the phone and I would help him order groceries on Amazon. I can’t look at an Entenmann’s raspberry danish without thinking of him,” she said. “I helped him buy holiday cards and write thank you notes to the nurses in his facility.”