Baraka: Newark is doing its part on homelessness. The rest of New Jersey must do theirs

OPINION

A recent state report said that 64% percent of the people staying in Newark’s homeless shelters come from outside the city.

Of the people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, only one in five are Newark residents, which is why this internal report from the Department of Community Affairs calls Newark “a magnet for regional unmet needs.”

But by the region, the DCA report means well beyond Essex County.

In fact, the non-Essex residents make up 54 percent of the people in our shelters, while 80 percent of those who use our other resources come from beyond Essex.

These are the plain facts, and the numbers tell us two things.

First, Newark has been extremely successful in offering dignified and compassionate services for the homeless among us.

And second, the state, county and towns around us aren’t doing their fair share to serve their homeless residents, if anything at all. As DCA-described “magnet,” we are making room and offering mental health and substance abuse services to people who are failed by their home towns to meet their housing needs.

I see a comparison to the failed Mount Laurel policies that allowed suburban towns to sidestep their responsibilities to build low-income housing. Now it seems these places, where housing is out of reach for even middle-income families, are equally negligent in offering solutions for their residents who hit hard times.

Predominantly Black and brown cities like Newark, which have the courage to create solutions for people challenged by low incomes, job loss, or substance abuse issues, are now dealing with an influx of people from towns that do not.

In Newark, we are willing victims of our own success. Led by a humanistic duty to the least of our brothers, we don’t discriminate against non-Newark residents. We turn away no one.

At the end of 2022, we introduced The Path Home: A Strategic Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, which called on community collaboration for solutions. Since then, we have expanded emergency housing capacity and created more than 700 emergency beds citywide.

Two years ago, we opened the “Come As You Are: Bridge Housing Community” a village of 12 repurposed shipping containers as dorm-style residential units with private showers for 20 residents.

Through a partnership with the Newark Housing Authority, we designated 200 public housing units to serve as transitional housing for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness in Newark.

This summer, we are opening a state-of-the-art Sheila Y. Oliver Community Drop-In Center to support Newark’s most vulnerable residents with showers, laundry, shelter from the elements, and access to mental health, substance use, employment, and housing services.

Teams from our Homeless Street Outreach Program fan through the city to spots where the people gather, such as Penn Station, to offer help and tend to their immediate needs.

This is a 24/7 operation and we are now partnering with Newark Alliance, RWJ Health and Rutgers University medical school and others to offer psychiatric and medical care in Penn Station and the downtown area. These professionals will deliver cost-free, direct care to unsheltered residents, and connect them to ongoing treatment and resources.

Since we view homelessness as a community problem requiring community solutions, we began a program to allow residents to text PATH HOME to 855-11 when they see a person on the street in crisis or need, so we can dispatch our outreach teams.

So far, we have received more than 2,000 such texts and brought these residents into shelter or provided other services.

All of this takes money, coordination and political will build on a foundation of fundamental belief that adequate shelter, like food is a basic human right.

We are also planning to redevelop the historic Riveria Hotel as a resource hub, with transitional and affordable housing opportunities.

All of this takes money, coordination and political will. We would like to see the state allocate more funding to create transitional and affordable housing aimed at those on fixed- and low-incomes.

We should never accept that some residents of New Jersey, the state with the second-highest median income in the country and the highest percentage of millionaires, are living on our streets.

For government at any level, from a municipal council to a county board to a state legislature, to fail its constituents at such as basic level is a fundamental failure of shameful proportions.

In Newark, we have found practical solutions to a national problem and would be happy to share our ideas and methods. But we have to find willing listeners, those in smaller towns and city prepared to no longer abdicate their responsibility to the least fortunate among us.