Dear Editor:
There is a SERIOUS problem here on First Street and Provost in Jersey City with a homeless encampment that the JCPD/Healey government has allowed to flourish, despite NIGHTLY calls from all residents, on the loading dock of Cityside Archives for the past 6 months or more.
This is beyond a matter of nuisance at this point and has become in fact a matter of public safety. As I sit here, with my whole family, after being woken up by a screaming fight between the half dozen emotionally disturbed drunkards living there, again, I’m driven almost to despair by the utter lack of ability of the powers that be here to allow our block, and in fact this area of the city, to stop from becoming a wild west show. I know, having spoken to several people on 1st and Warren who have had their personal safety threatened, who have been verbally assaulted, physically threatened, etc, that there is a serious premise for this situation to escalate. I have personally watched out my windows as bottles are heaved into the street, as people defecate, and have sex, in plain site during broad daylight. What is this, Tombstone? IMAGINE what it’s like for my fiancée to come home after dark with my SON?
So as I sit, third night in a ROW that we’ve all been woken up, and knowing that now that the police have been called – again – and that we have more to come tonight, a school night for my son, I’m dismayed, disgusted, and disappointed (to be alliterative) with the whole situation. It’s 12:30, and we have another macabre marionette theater to look forward to, as police, ambulances etc. begin their nightly assignations. What’s more amazing is that this has been going on FOR MONTHS. It’s clear to us that the corrupt, for-hire-government here in JC wants this area of the city (The Powerhouse Arts District) to fail, wants to make the area look as blighted as possible so that they can parcel it off to the highest corporate bidder, at the expense of the public good of which they have been entrusted. Is it any wonder then that we can’t have public parks instead of rubble fields, can’t have road repair instead of pot holes, receive endless parking tickets like mosquito bites instead of basic services like trash removal. We’re merely renters here in the Condo on Bay and Provost.
I’m as angry as I can be about it. Were I an OWNER here I would be marching on City Hall with a pitchfork and a flaming torch. Daily. Painted with berry juice like William Wallace. Further, what’s absolutely outstanding about the situation is that while the property values of THE 1ST STREET side of this building alone stand in the millions, members of the JC city counsel stand accused of receiving bribes of of 10 THOUSAND DOLLARS a man. That’s less than the per unit annual taxes to own here. May they be buried in pennies.
Matthew Peyton