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The following article printed in the Star Ledger highlights Morris County’s upcoming Project Homeless Connect event taking place on Thursday December 6, 2007
 

Friday, November 30, 2007
BY LAWRENCE RAGONESE
Star-Ledger Staff

Morris County is putting out a call to its homeless residents, hoping to provide services and make connections with some of the af fluent county’s neediest people during a special event scheduled for them next Thursday.

Everything from medical care and haircuts to winter clothing, bus passes and housing information will be available to homeless people during a one-day, intensive outreach effort in Morristown that will kick off with a ceremony on the Morristown Green featuring state Senate President Richard Codey, said organizers of Project Homeless Connect of Morris County.

“Many of these people are scared, stigmatized, afraid to approach us to get the help they need,” said Joann Bjornson, chairwoman of the event and executive director of the Interfaith Council for Homeless Families of Morris County.

“They do not mostly fit the picture of what many people think of as homeless — people living on the streets out of shopping carts. But most of the people have jobs, work at your local bank or coffee shop, and look like you or I, but they go to a shelter at the end of the day.”

To read the full article click here.

Morris County will host their 2nd annual Project Homeless Connect event on Thursday, December 6, 2007.  This one day event will provide much needed services to individuals experiencing homeless, bring service providers together in one location, and highlight the issue of homelessness in our communities.  Morris County Project Homeless Connect will start with a kickoff at 9am on the green in Morristown.  Guest speakers for the kick-off include:

NJ State Senate President Richard Codey
NJ State Senator-elect Joe Pennacchio
Sam Miller of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness
Morris County Officials

The kick-off will also include a performance by Kevin So, an accomplished Folk, Pop, R&B Solo Singer-songwriter.

Following the kick-off, Project Homeless Connect will be held at St Peter’s Church in Morristown and at the Market Street Mission from 10am ~ 2pm.  Social Service Agencies and community members will provide services to include those related to housing assistance, mental health, medical, veterans, and disability benefits, social services, and obtaining food and clothing, massage therapy, pet therapy and giveaways of various items. 

For more information on Morris County Project Homeless Connect event scheduled for December 6, 2007 click here on the links below.

 PHC Press Release

PHC General Flyer

PHC Participant Flyer

The Wall Street Journal last week reported on the plight of renters across the country, especially those in small apartment buildings and single-family homes who are paying a high price for their landlords’ financial troubles during the current mortgage crisis. Across the U.S., thousands of people are being evicted. As lending standards were relaxed in recent years, more people snapped up properties that lenders rented out, or partly rented out. When they couldn’t make their mortgage payments, sometimes because their adjustable-rate mortgages reset to higher rates, the properties ended up in foreclosure. In most places in the U.S., that voids tenants’ leases, potentially leaving them homeless.

In the FY 2008 HUD Budget, which has still faces a Presidential veto, includes the following new Section 8 Vouchers:

$75 million for approximately 7,500 - 10,000 new Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers for homeless veterans;

$30 million for approximately 4,000 new vouchers for non-elderly people with disabilities; and

$30 million for approximately 4,000 new Family Unification Program (FUP) vouchers for families that would otherwise be separated because of a housing problem.

According to NACCED “over the Thanksgiving recess talks are anticipated between the democratic congressional leadership and the White House. At issue is the president’s insistence that the domestic spending bills be limited to the aggregate $933 billion proposed in his budget. The Congressional Budget Resolution passed last spring contains a limit of $953 billion. Just before the recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) proposed to split the difference, but a White House spokesperson threw cold water on this suggestion.” In the House there are not enough votes to override the threatened veto. The Senate will vote on the HUD Budget on December 10th. The new vouchers are not expected to be at risk of a veto.

As the holiday season officially begins, Let’s Rock America prepares to host their annual Blank Fest event.  Once again, The Crossroads in Garwood New Jersey will be home to the benefit concert featuring local bands coming together to provide blankets for the homeless.  This years concert will be held on December 23 starting at 4pm. The line up for this year’s Blank Fest includes:

Ruby and Jerry
Melinda Davis and the 11th Hour
The Voltaires
Splooge
F.P. Toz
The Baghdaddios

Blank-Fest New Jersey 2007 will run from 4pm - 12:30pm at The Crossroads, 78 North Avenue, Garwood, New Jersey 07027.  Admission to the event is a blanket for the homeless.  All blankets collected at Blank Fest New Jersey 2007 will be distributed at Project Homeless Connect events throughout the state on January 29, 2008.

To learn more about Blank-Fest click here. 

Where will they sleep tonight?

This article in the Hudson Reporter underscores the extent of the crisis of homelessness as cold weather arrives.

Hudson County homeless shelters near capacity in cold weather

Madeline Friedman, Reporter staff writer  11/25/2007
 
As the temperatures drop, the county’s three main homeless shelters are starting to feel the cold-weather crunch.

The three shelters - Palisades Emergency Residence Coalition in Union City, the Hoboken Homeless Shelter, and St. Lucy’s in Jersey City - have been operating at or near capacity on most nights, shelter workers said. The three shelters have, respectively, 40, 50, and 80 beds per night, but there are estimated to be approximately 2,973 homeless people in the county. 

To read the full article click here.

On the front page of today’s Star-Ledger was a wonderful article about “Chuck Matheny, who helped the world grasp cerebral palsy and is still inspiring researchers and volunteers in his midst.” The Matheny Medical and Educational Center in Peapack was started by his parents after Mr. Matheny was born. It is also named for Mr. Matheny. The article refers to Mr. Matheny as the Mayor of the Hill.

The following is a portion of the article. Click here to read the full article.

His honor, the former patient

Chuck Matheny, who helped the world grasp cerebral palsy, is still inspiring researchers and volunteers in his midst

Sunday, November 25, 2007

BY JUDY PEET, Star-Ledger Staff

He may be an icon to generations of the handicapped, but what Chuck Matheny really wants is a date.

Preferably with Katie Couric, although he wouldn’t say no to Barbara Walters.

“Tell them I’m not married,” he says, his merry green eyes belying his tortured speech. “Tell them I’ll be a gentleman.”

A gentle, funny man, Matheny has been the public face of cerebral palsy since childhood. He is the reason his parents started what is now the Matheny Medical and Educational Center in Peapack, a nonprofit teaching hospital and one of the country’s leading facilities for people with severe developmental disabilities.

For most of his childhood, Matheny was a poster child for the center, a sunny little boy with leg braces, crutches and a big, rigid grin. Now 66, he still lives in a small house on the hospital grounds, where he is known as the Mayor of the Hill.

“We love Chuck because he refuses to be his handicap,” says hospital director of volunteers Gail Cunningham. “He won’t let you feel sorry for him, because it isn’t necessary: He has one of the richest lives I know.”

Reliant on a wheelchair for most of his adult life, Matheny worked for 40 years as groundsman and caretaker at the center, driving a tractor and snowplow. He has traveled the country, trained Seeing Eye puppies and raised thousands of dollars for charity. He is a doting uncle, a loyal friend and an unrepentant flirt.

He was a Kiwanis Club man of the year — although he says he left when “they became grumpy old men” — and is still active in his church. He donates blood, logged hundreds of miles on his wheelchair demonstrating against hunger, and sponsors an Indonesian child.

He has voted in every election for decades, can drive a car and spends every Christmas in Las Vegas. He loves music, old movies, “I Love Lucy” and his cat, Cody.

He has beautiful hands. He looks older than he is until he breaks into his trademark rictus smile.  

This is a positive, feel good story that is a must read. To read the article click here.