Hackensack, NJ Community Message Boards

CompCare serves the mentally ill homeless population in Hackensack and those in group homes.  However, as with the woman Tom Davies wrote about, who is now homeless again, there isn't much of a program for them.   She simply walked away to join her former friends on the street.   In defense of CompCare, there isn't much they can actually do legally to stop her because of her "rights." 

Many people assume the people sitting outside CompCare are homeless, but they are, like you said, residents of group homes.   Businesses have been persistent in their complaint about the homeless being a deterrent to shoppers, yet many people I talk with are rather surprised to learn that the people hanging out at Ward, State and Main are not homeless.   

Lawrence Aaron tells it like it is...again.

I wonder if any people at all from Bergen attended this meeting.  After the ridiculous letter that BCCAP wrote that appeared in the Record in June, I doubt it. 

The United Way is busy throwing all its resources into 2-1-1.  Bergen County CAP either doesn't have the funds or the expertise to handle the most difficult cases.   Bergen Regional Medical Center has very little to offer the mentally ill and those addicted since childhood.   Passaic County understands the problems with discharging patients too early, with unfinished wound care, the length of time needed with detox and rehab, and what happens when there is insufficient follow up on medication.  So many Bergen mentally ill were SUPPOSED to be followed up on their "turf" as one mental health agencies states on their website, but weren't, and ended up decompensating, losing their housing and back in the hospital.

Bergen Regional, Bergen CAP and CompCare couldn't keep the high profile case that Tom Davies wrote about last year, under stable mental health care.   She is back on the street after being hospitalized for a year (read imprisoned)  and then placed in a group home.   The "program" in the group home was to bus her to the streets of Hackensack early in the morning so she could spend the day with homeless alcoholics.  SHe is now homeless again.

The service agencies in Bergen would rather argue amongst each other over who is doing the job the right way.  They could take many lessons from Common Ground in NYC and the efforts of agencies in Passaic County.

The mystery is what makes this painting even better.  It's a great piece of art!

Skipx,

You were very kind to let the woman in but please don't do that again.   Orchard St. has bathrooms that she could have used.

To Robin Reilly's credit, she gets homeless people into rehab programs in NYC, where programs are better.  Unfortunately, many of them return to Hackensack, some to show the others how well they are doing and they end up starting the cycle all over again.   Alcohol rehab experts say it takes at least 8 months of rehab to have any meaningful recovery - and that's for people who are developmentally developed.   Most of the alcoholics on the street are not - they are at the emotional development of the age they started drinking - most of them preadolescence and early teens.

"Services are grossly inadequate for those who slip between the cracks of impossible rules and regulations," she (Robin Reilly) said.

There are many, mostly the ones that do wander the streets drunk or insane, that don't have the wherewithall to get to Bergen Regional at 7:30 a.m. to be voluntarily admitted for 3-5 day detox.   There is then about a 30 day waiting list to get into rehab, for 21 days, which is grossly inadequate.  There is no place to go between detox and rehab but back to the streets.  There are few services, if any, for those without Medicaid.

There is no therapy - there is psychiatry, not psychology - for homeless people.   There are mental health workers that are supposed to administer meds where their clients live (usually in SROs), but often meds appointments are missed, either by the MHR or the client.   This usually means admission to a psych unit.   After visiting several patients at Bergen, I learned an awful lot about mental health services for haves and have-nots.   If the client went in schizophrenic, they ended up depressed, too. 

The funny thing about BCCAP's and Robin Reilly's comments is that they are both right about some things and but are also trying to sell stuff that doesn't exist.   Instead of cooperation, there is too much jockeying for attention.

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. 

Yes, it is Cindy in the video.   Some of the homeless I now know well had group photos that were taken at holiday dinners and she is pictured in them.