A food festival is a great idea. There are so many nations represented in food on Main St, and the shop owners are lovely.
They have been more than happy to explain what to do with foods customers are unfamiliar with. I spent one Saturday about a year ago just shopping the different stores and felt like I was on vacation, except for a few minor incidents. Some of the stores were filthy, however, and when the International Food Warehouse opened up on Essex, that became my preference. I've shopped the farmer's market on Berry and Main, but often that is filthy, too. Great fish market and unique salad bar, but it cannot be relied upon for fresh produce and the stench in the parking lot and recently at entrance on main street is disgusting. I prefer the market down Route 17 in Rutherford.
Before I got involved with the homeless, I often took a spin down Main Street because I liked the quaint look and the diversity of Hackensack, and thought there was so much more that could be done with the town. There are\were no attractive stores for me (as far as clothing and home decor), however, and parking was bad. The parking behind Aylwards is treacherous, and Vitamin Shoppe offers a lot of the same stuff at lower prices.
The few difficult encounters I had were actually with people at the head injury treatment office. A young man followed me, asking for a date. I coincidentally met him again at a flea market, where he was accompanied by a social worker and several peers. Depending on what part of the brain has been injured, some of these patients have poor impulse control, and can be frightening to passers-by. No one mentions these patients spending prolonged periods of time on Main Street. Do people think they are homeless? They're not.
No one brings up other deterrents for shoppers, such as the Riviera Lounge crowd. What was a bigger problem for me were the few guys hanging outside the Riviera Lounge. These are not homeless people. How many outsiders will come to a neighborhood with a go-go bar in the middle of it? Women don't really feel all that comfortable walking past people who have been drinking.
I like Aladdin Restaurant and the nearby Colombian bakery's coffee, but avoid parking near the mental health office up on Ward and Main because sometimes the clients are foul-mouthed, some are no longer in charge of their finances and then they panhandle. Parking stinks up in this area.
There ARE several homeless people who help out at the cheap liquor store way down Main St. One tall, thin, guy with long hair can be spotted in doorways. He's severely schizophrenic, but harmless. He doesn't belong on the street.
My friend, a general manager for a large store in Edgewater, is taking a continuing ed course at Ciarco and while on break, checked out a building for sale. "John" who works or owns a wireless tech business saw her and gave her a guided tour of the neighborhood, including Mango's (Qu. Latifah's Mom's place). She really appreciated his efforts. She also feels that with the current immigration debate that the diverse population in Hackensack is a deterrent, as she watched all the ESL students exiting onto the streets. While she and I might love the Peruvian, Ecuadorean and Mexicans we meet, I'll bet their all being classified as illegal immigrants, just like anyone who doesn't look like the rest of us is being classified as homeless. You won't find too many homeless people in Hackensack in these ethnic backgrounds either.
Hackensack's shopping district has problems other than the homeless and it should stop using them as their scapegoat. It serves the poor population and the office workers of Hackensack and unless the businesses clean up their acts and people actually get to know who is hanging out on their streets, it will continue to attract the same kinds of shoppers.
