Going shopping for shelter at an N.J. mall | Editorial – nj.com

Going shopping for shelter at an N.J. mall | Editorial – nj.com

You’ve got to have mixed feelings about in-your-face protests that disrupt businesses that are just minding their own business, and aren’t the target of the demonstration.

To some, having a busload of homeless people from Camden set up temporary camp outside the Macy’s entrance inside Cherry Hill Mall is the height of unnecessary disruption of commerce, especially as shopping destinations try to recover from COVID-19 shutdowns.

At the same time, the unhoused community and their advocates know that staying in the shadows fails to prompt action. Especially in the suburbs, these folks are invisible. Out of sight, out of mind, is how government officials like things. It avoids confrontation and controversy.

Almost nine years ago, a South Jersey Times reporter filed several stories about an encampment in the woods behind a Walmart store in Deptford Township. A blurb described it as “a colony of homeless men, which has gone unnoticed by the public … .” Once interviews with the men and a gallery of photographs were published, Gloucester County officials took interest in providing for their daily needs and finding shelter for some of them. The solutions may have been short term, but the scene could no longer be ignored.

To get back to what occurred at the mall (one news website dubbed it “Occupy Cherry Hill”), demands were quite basic and specific. This was a protest against what demonstrators called a lack of warming centers, a situation exacerbated by sub-freezing temperatures and pandemic-related reductions in daytime accommodations such open libraries.

Tawanda “Wawa” Jones, one of the organizers, said she was not surprised that most mall employees and shoppers were not bothered by a two-hour sit-in on March 7. For one thing, it helped bust up stereotypes.

“For Camden, it’s that the city is dangerous,” Jones told whyy.org. “For Cherry Hill, it’s that they live in a bubble and don’t have a clue. But when you put it in front of them, they wanted to know what’s going on and asked, ‘How can I help?’ “

Covering another mall protest the next day, KYW Newsradio reported that another activist, the Rev. Amir Khan, said that Camden City and Camden County were not meeting their obligation to provide 24-hour shelters, just doing the minimum under Code Blue laws — which kick in only when temperatures are extreme.

The we’re-doing-all-we-can response to KYW from a Camden County spokesperson, Vincent Basara, was rather dismissive. “We do have three locations in the city of Camden that are open and available, and the hours are dictated by the county health officer.”

Khan and Jones want empty buildings — and the city has plenty — used as designated shelters. It certainly can be argued that some smaller New Jersey cities, particularly Bridgeton, have mounted a more robust Code Blue plan for overnight lodging, prompted mostly by nonprofit and religious sectors.

Elsewhere, Newark is testing converted seven overseas shipping containers as shelters, and has retrofitted seven of them. There are shower facilities, meeting one sanitation issue related to homelessness. Recognizing something similar, the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff recently argued for building public restrooms as an infrastructure priority in a column headlined “America Is Not Made for People Who Pee.”

Numerous barriers exist to “helping” the homeless, not all of them financial. Some fear living in shelters. Others have drug use and mental health issues to overcome before stable housing can be arranged. Still, most would move into more permanent homes if they could.

All things considered, we’d rather not confront an encampment of tents and blankets in order to shop at Macy’s. But demonstrators are right to make themselves visible until there is an effort by officials to negotiate with homeless representatives, and generally try harder to meet more of this community’s needs.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.

Published at Sun, 14 Mar 2021 12:26:18 +0000