From today's "Letters to the Editor" in The Record:
Regarding "Remembering Bergen's homeless" (Page L-1, June 1), we would like to shed light on some of the information provided by Robin Reilly, manager of the F.A.I.T.H. Foundation homeless shelter in Hackensack.
The homeless are neither "overlooked" nor do they "have trouble getting the services they need." Staff at Bergen County Community Action Partnership work diligently 365 days a year to provide comprehensive services to the homeless. These services now include shelter, meals, showers, case management, transportation, and access to health, mental health and substance abuse treatment.
We work in close collaboration with Bergen County, other homeless providers, including the Interreligious Fellowship for the Homeless, and a host of other social service and mental health providers in the county. In addition, we have close ties to the Upper Main Street Business Alliance in Hackensack.
When Reilly states, "Services are grossly inadequate for those who slip between the cracks of impossible rules and regulations," she is in effect enabling -- saying that alcoholism and untreated, serious mental illness, often co-occurring, are OK.
Does anyone seriously think he or she can assist people in the arduous pursuit of changing their lives, of taking meaningful steps toward self-sufficiency, while failing to help those persons to rid themselves of the demons that help to keep them in the revolving door of homelessness?
Those suffering from the disease of alcoholism, substance addiction or serious mental illness cannot be helped merely by a well-intentioned handshake or a temporary respite. They need and deserve professional treatment. Otherwise, they often die.
At BCCAP we believe people can change, can be helped and can succeed. We do not and cannot accept those who are actively drunk or high from drugs into the current shelter or any environment where individuals are working to regain and maintain sobriety and self-sufficiency. It is not only counterproductive; it is unethical and regressive.
We do encourage those with active addictions to seek proper medical detox at Bergen Regional Medical Center and continue their recovery in inpatient treatment facilities and, where appropriate, in BCCAP's therapeutic halfway house. Those with mental illness can also be helped through therapy and appropriate medication so that they too can lead productive, independent lives.
An important new feature of the expanded shelter is that we will be able to work with those with active addictions and untreated mental illness while encouraging them to get necessary treatment to begin their paths to recovery and stability.
The bottom line is simply this: In order for treatment to occur, sobriety is required. Reilly should know that. The "impossible rules" she rails against include sobriety. It is in everyone's best interest to reach out to those who are sick and get them the help they need, not turn away from their disease or accept it as inevitable.
Robert F. Halsch Jr. and Lois A. Braithwaite
Hackensack, June 5
The writers are, respectively, executive chairman and chairwoman of the board of Bergen County Community Action Partnership Inc.
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How condescending of you to venture a small round of applause while Hackensack gets royally screwed over again ("Shelter taking shape," Editorial, June 16). The expanded homeless shelter will encourage more of the unwanted to gravitate to our streets.
Hackensack is forced to accept a myriad of social services, especially the jail, which 69 other towns fail to appreciate.
Maybe people do a walk in Woodcliff Lake or Saddle River to raise money for the homeless. Maybe they serve meals to the homeless. But these supposedly charitable people are the hypocritical "nimbys" of the wealthy communities.
Enid Huskiewicz
