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Thanks to Su Nottingham of the Bergen County Department of Human Services, we have been able to add nine new photos from the successful Bergen County Project Homeless Connect event.

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These are some random photos for the event.

To view all of the photos click here. To view a slide show click here.

To find out more about Project Homeless Connect click here.

Bergen County hosted a successful Project Homeless Connect event on Tuesday January 29, 2008. These are a few photos from the event. Click on anyone to see it full size. Click here to view all of the photos. To view a slide show click here.

Bergen’s County Executive, Freeholders, departmental staff, civic and faith based communities held a forum with Phil Mangano of the Interagency Council on Homelessness  on January 29, 2008.  Freeholder Chair Bernadette P. McPherson welcomed the participants. She announced that one key component of the Bergen County’s soon to be completed Ten Year Plan will be to have all of Bergen County’s departments work together in partnership to end homelessness. Mr. Mangano noted that as easy as these sounds it rarely happens without leadership by the freeholders and county executive. To listen to Mr. Mangano’s speech use the toolbars.

 

 Phil Mangano address in Bergen County [58:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

These are random photos from the event. Click on anyone to see it full size. Click here to view all of the photos. To view a slide show click here.

The Paramus Post of Bergen County highlighted the upcoming Project Homeless Connect event taking place in Hackensack on January 29, 2008.

McNERNEY ANNOUNCES PROJECT HOMELESS CONNECT

By Mel Fabrikant Wednesday, January 16 2008, 07:45 PM EST

Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney and the Department of Human Services today announced that on Tuesday, January 29 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., the county will be participating in Project Homeless Connect (PHC) at the Bergen County Community Action Partnership Drop-In Center in Hackensack.

PHC is a successful homeless outreach program that began in San Francisco, California and offers the community an opportunity to aid the homeless by providing much needed services and support.

To read the full article click here.

The upcoming Project Homeless Connect event in Bergen County has been featured in New York One news. In her report, Christina Sico highlights some of the services that will be offered on January 29.

Bergen County Drop-In Center To Host Event To Help Area Homeless

January 22, 2008

The image of Bergen County living is one of luxury high rises or large houses in the suburbs. It’s rare to think of people living on the streets. As NY1’s Christina Sico explains in the following report, county officials are asking residents to reach out to the borough’s homeless.

During the winter months, the Bergen County Community Action Partnership Drop-In Center in Hackensack is open 24 hours — so the homeless can escape the cold.

Last year, a Point-in-Time survey found 1,454 people throughout the county had no place to call home. More than 500 were children.

“They have no home to go,” said Bergen County Director of Crisis Division Allison DuBois. “So they come here so all their needs can be met. They take showers. They use the phone for business-type calls and medical appointment.”

To read the full article and view the news report click here

The Bergen Record published an article entitled “Annual count of homeless questioned“. The article focuses on HUD’s claim of a dramatic drop in chronic homelessness. The challenge is the presumption that the annual counts are accurate enough to make such projections. We should focus on how we end homelessness which is what both Bergen and Passaic are doing as they develop and implement their ten year plans to end homelessness.

This is a portion of the article. To read the full article click here.

Counting the chronic homeless is difficult because they are transient. Adding to the problem is that the federal Point-in-Time surveys haven’t been standardized until now. For instance, the 2006 survey was in April, while the 2005 and 2007 surveys were in January. Future surveys will be in January.

BERGEN COUNTY

2005: 151
2006: 119 -21 percent
2007: 78 -34 percent

PASSAIC COUNTY

2005: NA
2006: 73
2007: 194 +165 percent

Sources: Bergen County Department of Human Services; Passaic County Department of Human Services

Annual count of homeless questioned
Sunday, December 23, 2007

By SCOTT FALLON
STAFF WRITER

The number of homeless who continually live on the streets is down in Bergen County and up in Passaic County in recent years, according to the latest counts, but some advocates say the numbers are faulty.

At issue is the Point-in-Time Count, a federal survey administered annually by local organizations to document the number of homeless in a region on a given day.

In Passaic’s survey, the number of chronically homeless went from 73 in 2006 to 194 in 2007. But the 2006 survey was taken on April 27 while the 2007 number was taken on Jan. 25, when the chronic homeless are easier to count because many are in shelters.

The Bergen counts, also done at different times of the year, showed the number of homeless fell 48 percent from 2005 to 2007, or to 78 people. The results led the county to reduce the planned number of beds at its new Hackensack shelter.

Just how accurate are the numbers that are driving public policy?

“The count of the homeless is a stab in the dark sometimes,” said Barbara Niziol, an executive at Eva’s Village in Paterson, one of the largest social service non-profits in North Jersey. “It’s still very limited.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bergen-County, Community development, Eva's Village, homelessness, HUD, NJCDC, Passaic-County, Supportive Housing

The Bergen Record published an article entitled “Many struggle to survive in Bergen County“. The article focuses on the reality that there homelessness and hunger exist in a county as wealthy as Bergen.The article highlights the gap between the wealthy and the poor. It notes “in Bergen County, where the median household income was $75,851 last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — 34th among the nation’s counties and up 16 percent since 2000. Fair-market rent on a two-bedroom apartment is $1,163 — 34 percent higher than it was just six years ago, according to The Legal Services of New Jersey Poverty Research Institute. The institute estimates that someone earning the $7.15-per-hour state minimum wage would have to work 122 hours a week to afford it.”

The following is a brief excerpt from the article. To read the full article click here. The article was referred to us by Bob Guarasci of NJCDC.

In affluent Bergen County, it’s getting easier for someone like Theresa Johnston to slip to the margins.

For Johnston, 45, the bottom fell out in October 2005, when she was laid off from her job at JPMorgan Chase in Secaucus. Unable to afford rent on the four-bedroom apartment that she shared with three of her children in Englewood, she ended up spending five months in a homeless shelter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bergen-County, Ending Homelessness