Hudson Reporter Archive

We can do better for the homeless

Dear Editor:
Is there any process by which we can encourage Hoboken-based businesses to hire Hoboken employees? Would it be legal to offer a $50 stipend per resident-employee per year? If not, could the city (or perhaps the Quality of Life Coalition) track the numbers and recognize businesses that are making an effort to hire local?
I believe it helps integrate our community on many levels.
I also believe any city that permits born and breds to sleep on its streets is failing. If someone is too unruly (read ill) for the shelter (which has its hands full) there should be an alternate housing option available. Why can we open up a church or the multi-service or HOPES center to house the handful of long-time homeless who are too afflicted to stay at the local shelters? Local volunteers can each cover one night monthly of sleeping there. (I guarantee people will step up; they do in other communities).
There is a Hoboken high school graduate, circa 1980, who sleeps prone against the high school building. Surely the school and community that fostered him can do better for him? Until a better solution is found, folks like him, who are chronically ill life residents of Hoboken, should be encouraged to bivouac in the police station parking lot to ensure their safety. By the way, arguably a court could find all of us liable should he suffer from violence or hypothermia because of our lack of making very simply accommodations to his disability).

Anonymous

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