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Immigrants joining the ranks of NJ's homeless
By SAMANTHA HENRY
The Associated Press
LAKEWOOD, new jersey percentage letter grading N.J. - The national immigration debate has reached people on the farthest margins of society new jersey coops in New Jersey.
In long-term encampments from the woods of southern New Jersey to the congested northern end of the state, an increasing number of immigrant day laborers are joining the adams package the jersey band ranks of the homeless.
In northern New Jersey, more than 100 homeless immigrant day laborers were found to be camping out in a North Bergen graveyard. Authorities cleared out a homeless encampment beneath a highway overpass in Passaic that was divided into piscataway new jersey move to sections labeled "USA" and "Mexico."
In Lakewood, near the Jersey shore, authorities recently removed occupants of two homeless tent cities , known locally as "the people in the woods." The camps were set up next to each other , one primarily a "local" camp and another populated by Mexican day laborers.
David Jones, a Lakewood native who lived in the local camp for years, said officials mostly left them alone until the immigrant camp sprung up.
"My personal feeling is that they attacked the Mexican site first to try and knock the homeless population down," he said.
Jill Perez, director of the Ocean County Human Services Department, said the presence of undocumented immigrants had nothing to do with the crackdown. She said the camps were targeted because they posed a jersey shore public health hazard by their location lawyer medford new jersey alongside a public watershed.
"We didn't ask who was or wasn't legal, we didn't make people provide any kind of status information , we were willing to hook anyone up with services that requested them," Perez said.
Jones said despite the unwanted attention he felt the immigrant homeless may have brought to the camps, there was little resentment among the local homeless. He said he and other local homeless people marveled at distilling in new jersey the Mexican camp because it had a chicken coop for fresh eggs, a communal outdoor kitchen fueled by propane gas, and large garden full new jersey looseslot machines of fresh vegetables, including tall stalks of corn.
A statement issued by Ocean County Administrator Alan W. Avery Jr. said two camps were removed from the woods because of ongoing criminal activity, including drug offenses and assaults. Living conditions in the camps caused environmental degradation of park property and surrounding land and waterways, and posed a public health risk, he said.
Social workers, new jersey salt water taffy health department officials, mental health counselors and other advocates had been trying to get the homeless living in the woods to accept services and relocate to shelters, Avery said.
But MaryAnn Allacci of berkeley heights new jersey fsbo the Lakewood-based advocacy group Mi Casa, said there are no homeless shelters in the county, and that those living in the tents had been offered one-way bus tickets to Atlantic City and Newark.
"They're chasing the problem around without resolving it," she said. "It's hard enough for people who are documented legal residents here to get assistance, and it's almost impossible to help people who do not have documentation."
Jose Lopez was among the dozen or so day laborers living in a Lakewood homeless camp, attracted to the area by the abundance of landscaping jobs. He said he was unable to afford housing because of high rental prices.
"Most of the guys living there (in the camp), it's because of economic necessity and they had nowhere to live," Lopez said, speaking in Spanish. ramsey borough new jersey "There are times we work, but there are a lot of people who get picked for work and a lot who don't, so to avoid new jersey naturalization records paying rent, you search for refuge wherever you can get it."
A state report released this week counts more than 27,400 homeless people in New Jersey during the course of a year , 33 percent of them children.
It's uncertain south jersey middle school band how many jaques new jersey undocumented immigrants live among the homeless, according to the National Coalition of the Homeless. That's because the undocumented are not eligible for government programs, and privately run shelters rarely ask about people's immigration status as a prerequisite for services.
Churches and advocacy organizations on the front lines of serving the poor in the Lakewood area say the number of immigrants appearing in food lines and among the homeless has been increasing in recent years.
"It's growing; there's been an uptick," said Minister Steven A. Brigham of the Lakewood Outreach Ministry Church, who has worked with the homeless for years. "I think it's partly to do with the economy and housing prices."
Brigham has been lobbying local government officials to create more services for the homeless.
"You know, if you're going to throw somebody out, at least have an alternative plan in place for them to go to," waldwick new jersey library Brigham said. "Almost all these people don't have an option to go into the social service system."
Marlene Lao-Collins, director of social concerns for the New Jersey Catholic shrewsbury township new jersey Conference, says the fine line between immigrants living in overcrowded conditions and outright homelessness is growing thinner.
"Housing is a serious problem in New Jersey. If you figure immigrants, especially undocumented, are at the bottom of the chain because of the extremely low wages new jersey blood test marriage they make, and they can't live in overcrowded conditions because towns are increasingly not tolerating it , which is frankly the way generations of new immigrants chamberlin middlesex new jersey have always lived , if that's not tolerated jersey cow pictures anymore, they'll start living in camps or out of cars."
Jones said while the immigrant homeless seemed to have moved on after county officials posted brightly colored eviction notices in blairstown new jersey Spanish on several tree trunks, many of the local homeless were left wondering what to do next.
"You have people that have come up in this small town of Lakewood all their life, and you're going to send them to Newark or to Atlantic City?" Jones said. "It's like giving a whale a Tic-Tac, it don't make no buffalo sabres jersey kind of sense."
August 4, 2008 12:01 AM
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