A Union City native in her early 60s named Joan has been living on the streets of Hudson County for more than a year with her faithful snow-white cat, Sugar, whom she adopted as a stray seven years ago.
Last week, Joan – who asked that her last name not be used – talked about how she ended up on the streets.
Joan is now a familiar sight around Hoboken, often sitting on a bench on Washington Street at dusk, scratching between Sugar’s ears. She says Hoboken holds good memories for her because she lived there in her in her youngest years. However, at some point in her childhood, her family moved to Union City.
“My aunt in Hoboken said, ‘This place is going to be something big someday,’ ” Joan recalled on a recent sunny Sunday afternoon, resting with Sugar at a Washington Street bus stop. “My father said, ‘No, where we’re going is going to be big.’ ”
When Joan was an adult, she moved to her own apartment on 14th Street in Union City. She said the area became unsafe and she’d find things missing from her unit when she came home. True or not, she found a less expensive alternative: a nondescript hotel/rooming house in the same town, not far from Kennedy Blvd.
She moved there in 1991 when rooms rented for $100 a week – not bad, considering she didn’t have to pay utilities or a month’s deposit.
Joan said that last year, the administration in Union City closed the hotel because of fire and other violations, although she believes certain tenants caused the problems, not the hotel.
She said the establishment had been temporarily closed twice before. “The first time,” she said, “they said it wasn’t up to code. The second time, they said the smoke alarm in one of the rooms didn’t work. But it was a guy living there who took the battery out. The third time, the Fire Department shut it down.”
A person affiliated with the hotel said last week that the hotel was closed down about four years ago, and said it was because the city fined them for fire violations.
The city’s corporation attorney, Christine Vanek, said the city closed the hotel in 2004 under orders from the state. However, in July of 2007, there was a fire in the hotel, and it was discovered that people might still have been living there, she said. According to a city spokesman, Joe Lauro, the city then forced the hotel to clear out.
“There’s no such thing as affordable housing here anymore.” – Joan
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Still affordable
At the time Joan left, her rent was up to $200 per week, she said. Joan said it was affordable because she didn’t have to pay
Joan works 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
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utilities or a security deposit. The hotel allowed her to keep her cat, which homeless shelters and many apartments do not. She paid the rent with her full-time maintenance job, where she still works from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each weekday.
“There’s no such thing as affordable housing here anymore,” she said. She said she has to remain in Hudson County because of the inexpensive public transportation to her job.
Besides, there are the memories.
“Hoboken holds a lot of attachment for me,” she said. “It reminds me of my cousins. I learned to drive here, on Observer Highway. My first kiss was here. There is a lot of attachment, you would say.”
All of her close family members have passed away, she says, except for Sugar. “That’s my family,” Joan said.
Joan met Sugar seven years ago when a co-worker of hers found the feline while cleaning an abandoned apartment. Sugar was already five years old.
Now, Joan travels the streets of Hoboken with Sugar safely in a cat carrier with air holes. She said she and her cat don’t mind the cold, but if it rains hard or snows, she will pay for a hotel room for one night so that Sugar doesn’t get sick. A nightly rate for a place that allows pets is sometimes $130, almost what a week cost in her old place in Union City.
She was asked if she ever stayed in the inexpensive Park Avenue Hotel in Weehawken, which is slated to be demolished. The hotel was the site of a grisly strangling in 2005, and now, Weehawken officials plan to build affordable housing there. However, it was also inexpensive.
Joan had a different reaction than to when her former home was shut, saying she wouldn’t stay at the Park Avenue Hotel. “That placeshould be torn down,” she said. “That’s where that young girl was murdered.”
Fancy Feast
Joan has enough money for her and Sugar to eat, she said, noting that she had just filled one of her duffel bags with Fancy Feast. “She’s not exactly skinny,” Joan smiled. “We have food. But I’d give anything for an affordable home again.”
But why spend extra money on Fancy Feast? “It has real fish in it,” she said, going on to detail the health benefits over imitation cat food. The longer Sugar lives, the longer Joan can continue to live with her faithful friend.
The homeless in Hudson County
In the last two years, a one-day census of homeless people in Hudson County found 2,842 in 2007, and 2,227 in 2008. The county has three shelters – one in Union City, one in Jersey City, and one in Hoboken. Together, they can fit fewer than 200 people per night.
“Too many people stereotype,” Joan said. “There are lots of homeless families on the street now. Yes, there are drug addicts who are homeless. Yes, there are drug dealers who are homeless. Yes, there are mentally ill. But some [drug addicts and dealers] have homes as well, do they not?”
Of how people treat her in Hoboken, she said, “Most people are nice. Some of the kids, when they get drunk, are just plain mean.”
Joan is grateful that next year, she will become eligible for Social Security. Meanwhile, she is hoping that someone might have an affordable apartment for her and Sugar. Anyone who has information can send it to editorial@hudsonreporter.com, with “Joan and Sugar” in the subject head.
Caren Matzner can be reached at CMatzner@hudsonreporter.com.