In a stroke of good news for the Hoboken Homeless Shelter, the state Department of Community Affairs/Shelter Support Program has issued a $170,000 grant to the Communities of Faith and Housing, the facility’s parent organization.
The grant will pay for social services and operating costs required to increase the shelter capacity. It will also help implement a mental health and substance abuse program, according to DCA Commissioner Susan Bass Levin.
“I am delighted that the [DCA] is able to provide assistance for this most worthwhile project,” said Levin in a letter to Mayor David Roberts.
The amount of the grant is particularly impressive considering that the shelter’s entire budget for last year was only $260,000, according the president of the shelter board, Michael Takano.
Sister Norberta Hunnewinkel, the shelter’s executive director, said Thursday that the money will help in several different ways. Normally, the shelter, which is located on Bloomfield Street, has 30 beds available every night. There is a small room upstairs in the shelter where 10 beds can fit comfortably or 20 beds can be packed in.
But because the shelter has not had enough funding in the past, the upstairs area was not always used. “This money will allow us to fully utilize that upstairs space,” Hunnewinkel said.
But Hunnewinkel added that this money will go for much more than just maintaining the nightly soup kitchen and the beds.
“The shelter and soup kitchen are just a band-aid for the problem,” she said. “It’s our goal to empower people to become employed and get out into the community. We want to create an environment where they can be successful.”
With that goal in mind, the $170,000 grant will also go towards an extensive drug and alcohol counseling program, mental health counseling, job training, and other programs that will help the shelter’s populace get back on their feet and working.
The shelter already does have some supportive services. Right now, it runs the Independent Living Program (ILP). The program, which started in 1998, combines mental health services, drug and alcohol counseling, job readiness, lifeskills training, computer literacy classes, support groups, and alumni services.
The ILP program also offers an arts curriculum with creative writing, dance and visual arts to help improve shelter guests’ communication skills while re-integrating them into the larger community by means of poetry readings, art exhibits and trips to the theater.
“We want change the whole culture of homelessness,” said Takano, “to be able to attack some of the more systemic problems of homelessness.”
He said that this can only be done with a “continuum of care and social service.” He added that an effective shelter offers more than just a safe bed for the night and a hot meal.
After the past winter’s low temperatures, the issue of homelessness has moved to the forefront locally.
Mental health counseling
Another aspect of the continuum of care is a focus on mental health and counseling. The grant money will allow a growing and evolving partnership with St. Mary Hospital’s Mental Health Center to expand greatly.
“We have worked together for years in a somewhat informal basis,” said Michael Swerdlow, the director of behavioral services at St. Mary Mental Health Center, a member of the Bon Secours and Canterbury Partnership for Care. “These funds will formalize that relationship and will allow us to bring our services to them.”
He said that mental health professionals will now, on a regular basis, come down to the shelter and provide services that will prepare the shelter’s population for employment opportunities, services such as drug and alcohol counseling, group and individual counseling, and self-esteem building workshops.
Much praise
Roberts and State Sen. Bernard Kenny (D-Hoboken) presented Hunnewinkel with a check Thursday afternoon. Additionally, Roberts announced that CBA Industries, Inc. of Paramus has donated $5,000 to the shelter.
“We understand your deep commitment to social causes such as helping the less fortunate,” said CBA President Barry Schiro in a letter to the mayor.
Last year, Roberts developed a three-pronged homelessness initiative. The first element is to offer immediate shelter for the city’s homeless through his support of the Hoboken Homeless Shelter. The second part of his plan is to help the city’s homeless community become self-supporting. Under a program called “Project Dignity,” the city has hired several homeless persons who are off drugs and alcohol, for entry-level positions in the city’s Public Works Department at minimum wage.
The third step was to make housing vouchers available for those who are successful in the job program. Several of these new city workers have received a housing voucher and have moved into apartments in the federally-funded Hoboken Housing Authority.
State Sen. Kenny, who helped lobby for the money in Trenton, deflected any credit to the shelter’s employees and to Mayor Roberts.
“It makes my job much easier when you have an administration and a shelter under such effective leadership,” he said. “They have been able to work together closely over the past year and a half and have yielded some great results.”
Kenny also thanked Mandy Gardner, the shelter’s grant writer, for putting together a well-written grant application.
Roberts said, “The work that Sister Norberta does, and the effect that she has had on this community, is self evident,” said Roberts Thursday. “She has created an atmosphere where everyone is anxious and willing to help.”
The shelter is always looking for volunteers to maintain the facilities and aid in the serving of meals from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. It is also accepting contributions of money, clothes, toiletries, and food left over from parties and entertainment functions. For more information on how to help, contact Sister Norberta Hunnewinkel at (201) 656-5069.
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