The homeless in Hudson County come from many walks of life. They’re military veterans, young adults aging out of foster care, mentally ill people, college graduates, and people who either chose the wrong path in life or were hit hard by the recession.
Vincent Viola is a Paramus Catholic high school student who lives in Guttenberg and volunteers at the PERC shelter in Union City during dinner time, serving more than 60 hot meals to the homeless each night.
‘We treat the guests with dignity and respect.’ – Emory A. Edwards
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The PERC (People’s Emergency Resource Center) Shelter of Union City was started by local churches in 1981 to shelter the many Cuban immigrants who were left homeless after leaving Cuba during the Mariel boat lift. St. John Lutheran Church housed about 50 people in a basement. The shelter moved in 1994 to the current shelter location on 37th Street.
Now, the shelter houses 40 men nightly and serves more than 200 meals each day for guests and outsiders. It also has a few units of transitional housing for families and the disabled.
Help first, ask later
Executive Director Emory A. Edwards thinks it’s important to help first and ask questions later when dealing with the homeless population who need clean clothes and a hot meal.
“A second chance at living life outside of homelessness and additional services [are] offered to all guests,” he says. “We treat the guests with dignity and respect.”
Edwards refers to the residents of the shelter as “guests” because it implies a temporary place.
“The placement of 40 percent of past residents in [other] housing is one of many great accomplishments of the shelter,” he said.
One former guest of the shelter was housed after being reunited with family, but occasionally comes to the shelter for food when times get hard in a week, said Edwards. “The current minimum wage is not enough when considering the cost of living.”
March 2011 saw 240 meals a day for both guests and people coming in from the streets. Guests get breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snacks.
“Helping the homeless is a tough job since many have difficulty communicating honestly with a stranger,” said Thomas Harrigan, program director. “But years of experience in shelters in New York and New Jersey has given me the tools to communicate with the homeless effectively.”
The shelter’s administrators said that people come to homelessness from various backgrounds, both ethnic and financial.
Their stories
B.C., a shelter guest, is a college graduate with a BA in English-Communications from Niagara University class of 1982. “The shelter helps you focus on short and long term goals” said B.C. recently. “I am studying to take the GRE so I can study physical therapy.”
He’s thankful that the shelter has made life easier since he lost a full-time job in New Jersey after living mostly in Huntington, Long Island.
“The changes in the economy caused me to make decisions to make ends meet,” he said. He said PERC was the lifeline B.C. needed to get back on his feet.
No job, no home
J.P. is a college graduate with a BS in Business-Marketing from Rutgers University of Newark.
“After working middle management for many years, I soon lost my job,” he said, “like many other middle management workers, because our jobs were outsourced.”
Joblessness led to homelessness after he exhausted all his resources.
“PERC’s atmosphere is really inviting,” J.P. said. He added, “Personal space is hard to give up since being independent in the past.”
Sharing a big room with 40 other shelter residents took getting used to.
“Having to reinvent myself at an elderly age is tough,” he said.
But his experiences at the shelter have proven to be J.P.’s golden parachute, and he will be moving soon to permanent housing and working full-time.
S.X. is a college graduate in nursing from Europe. Waiting to be placed in public housing has proven to be a “sad state,” he said.
As people pass away, S.X.’s name moves up the housing list.
“After working for many years in Europe I moved to the U.S. to work,” he says. “I soon found myself unemployed, and later divorced.”
The strains of life have caused him a lot of stress but the PERC shelter has made life easier to cope day to day as well as “made me more compassionate.”
Being an early retiree and soon to be a senior citizen allows S.X. to be a full-time dad when he’s given visitation dates with his child.
Shelter for refugees
The homeless of PERC are given referrals to county services. But it is important for the people coming to the shelter to show initiative in changing their situation, shelter administrators said.
The shelter will have to refuse entry to those who choose to be uncooperative with shelter staff.
Harrigan has come across many ethnic groups, and people with a variety of educational and work experiences. But the one thing he stresses is that “many are not crazy people screaming to the sky, but just hard workers in need of a second chance.”
For more information, check out PERCshelter.org or call 201-348-8150.
Santo Sanabria may be reached at SSanabria@hudsonreporter.com.