Monarch Housing’s Blog!

Passaic 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. As they become available more photos will be posted.

On Sunday the Herald News printed an article entitled “Life on streets is desperate choice“. This details the story of Mary Forys homelessness and that of even more in Passaic City and County. The artcile states “The homeless woman is a familiar part of the Main Avenue landscape. Business owners call her “Smelly Mary” for her unpleasant odor. Police have arrested the 53-year-old woman more than a dozen times for loitering, panhandling and drug use. Mayor Samuel Rivera said he’s received calls about her soiling herself in the post office. Some passers-by give her dollar bills or cigarettes, others simply yell obscenities.”

The more we read the more she sounds like the Million Dollar Murray of Passaic City.

Click here to watch the video.

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

Life on streets is desperate choice
Sunday, December 2, 2007

By MEREDITH MANDELL, HERALD NEWS

Red tape suffocating some

PASSAIC — Mary Forys sleeps curled up in a ball behind a garbage can to shield her from the wind.

The homeless woman is a familiar part of the Main Avenue landscape. Business owners call her “Smelly Mary” for her unpleasant odor. Police have arrested the 53-year-old woman more than a dozen times for loitering, panhandling and drug use. Mayor Samuel Rivera said he’s received calls about her soiling herself in the post office. Some passers-by give her dollar bills or cigarettes, others simply yell obscenities.

But most ignore her as they walk by talking on their cell phones, running to catch buses or picking up children at school.

Mary is just one of an estimated 1,300 homeless people on any given day in Passaic County and among the 349 chronically homeless, according to the county’s Point in Time survey, part of a one-day effort to get an accurate snapshot of homelessness in the region. 
 
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Ending Homelessness, Mary-Forys, Passaic