Advocates Seek Homeless Aid, Fraud Alleged

CORRECTION
WILDWOOD – Only the Sandy Housing voucher program will end Sept. 30, 2015. The Learning Recovery Center will continue to address the needs of the community. It hopes to gain access to additional housing vouchers and increased services, according to Betty Redman.
CREST HAVEN – For a second time in less than a month, freeholders heard pleas on behalf of the homeless in Cape May County. At the Feb. 10 meeting Denise Venturini, of Lower Township, and Tom Marchetti, of Stone Harbor, returned to the podium where they spoke Jan. 13 of the situation. This time the pair was accompanied by two homeless men who addressed the board.
It was to be proof that not all homeless people desire to be that way, but are often victims of life’s circumstances, Venturini said.
Marchetti said he had done a study, to prove a point, of the Social Services voucher program. “I have in this study nine vouchers that pay $350 a week. These same nine people work for cash in other employment places in the county.
Collecting and Working
“Four of those nine are known drug dealers who also work for cash at a job,” Marchetti alleged. That tally, he said, equates to $163,800 annually. In addition, he cited 10 leases at $1,000 a month, or $120,000 a year.
“That’s just a small study of what I did, through the county,” Marchetti said.
Hearing that, Director Gerald Thornton asked Marchetti to provide him with names of those persons so that they could be given to a Social Services investigator. “Welfare fraud is a crime,” said Thornton. “If necessary we will turn them over to the prosecutor’s office. We have done that over the years. We have sent investigators to the job sites.”
Again, limited manpower was cited by Thornton as part of the problem. “We have three investigators in the Fraud Department. They do everything from food stamp fraud to housing. They are pretty well overwhelmed. If we know who they are we can try to address that,” he said.
Marchetti acknowledged his was a small study, but said, “These are people I know. I see them in Wildwood and Stone Harbor. I know it is already a proven fact that is just a small amount of people.”
“The problem is the system is severely broken. The people we talked about last time (Jan. 13) in tent city, those people truly are people who need help,” he continued.
“The reason why the system won’t reach out to grab these people is because it’s exhausted with the same people in the same areas collecting pay. I’m not talking food stamps or cash cards,” Marchetti continued.
A task force would be able to “weed out that bad element that’s constantly abusing the system and working a job,” he added. He alleged investigators went to landlords, not to those receiving the benefits.
Social service investigators going to housing units are not going to catch those abusing benefits, he said. But a task force, funded with saved money after ending abuse, could set up a database and save a tremendous amount of money, a tenth of that money could pay for the task force, he said.
Faces of Homeless
“I would like to put a face to the homeless issue,” said Venturini. “There is a stigma that maybe they are habitual sluggards. That may be the definitions of homeless in the past, but with the rising issues of unemployment…the face of homelessness.”
She introduced William Compton and John Fox, who “want to share the progress they have made and imminent problem of homelessness that is facing a very reputable young man who would like to say hello.”
Like a Fingerprint
Compton spoke first. He is with DCH Inc., and is manager of the Atlantis Hotel in Wildwood.
“Homelessness is unique as a fingerprint. There are many different faces to homelessness. I can expound on mine,” he began. “I was placed in society in an area that homeless was not an option for me. However, I found myself there. Thanks to Cape May County, I was able to retool and recoup myself through the Homeless Hotline. I ran into DCH Associates, and also Morey’s Piers which gave me my opportunity as a ride operator. That jumped me off. I was ineligible for welfare benefits in Cape May County. I had not been a resident for six months. Thanks to the Homeless Hotline and a series of Code Blues, I was able to get myself a series of small jobs through DCH. They assisted with employment. From there, I knew I needed full-time employment.
“I needed a full-time job. Thanks to Morey’s Piers and my good reference from Morey’s Pier I got a job with DCH Associates. All those people who banded together, who hire people in my position. These are the people we need to mobilize. Help the truly needy people in Cape May County. There are people who are abusing the system, but the system can actually work for families.
Tent City in Wildwood
“It is absolutely amazing that I found a tent city in Wildwood. Fortunately, I never had to go to something like that. If my fortune had not been as good as it was. Can you imagine what it must be like living in a tent in 16 degrees weather with no heat or if you do have heat probably putting using pressure treated wood for a fire and inhaling the fumes, your children are inhaling those fumes, you are cooking over it,” Compton said.
“These people were, at one time, hard-working people. We need to examine the system and cut the people out of the system who are abusing it and focus more on the families and the people who truly are in need and work with them to become productive members of the county,” he added.
Compton said he has devoted most of his spare time to enabling truly needy and homeless people by offering them rides to Social Services in Rio Grande “for people who need social services who can rightfully use the system.”
Feeling Blessed
“God blessed me, He smiled on me, and He gave me this opportunity to give back. I am begging you to consider the bill put before you and truly helping to eliminate the tent cities,” Compton said. He urged a “shelter or something where we can jump these people off into productive jobs productive members of the community. Not everyone can you rescue. Even if you get 10 percent you’ve done something. They can gather someone else. It’s like saving a penny, one turns into two, two into three, they turn into dimes, quarters and dollars. Cape May County is a progressive county, it is much better than some cities in the United States,” he concluded.
Seasonal Job, Lost in Shuffle
Fox then spoke. He has worked for the same seasonal job in Wildwood. When he applied for a claim, he phoned the state, sent pay stubs. Then spoke to a woman who said a letter was needed. He thought the phone call would be sufficient. He then spoke with a man who said the claim would be valid, then he received a letter that stated it was invalid.
If Fox’s claim is not fixed quickly, “Now I don’t know what to do. If this situation is not resolved, I will be the next guy living in tent city.”
He wrote to the governor who responded with phone numbers that he then called, and still “getting the runaround” and has not received an answer.
“Putting a face to the homeless is meant to inspire you to move you to that understanding not everyone is homeless because they are lazy or they have a drug problem or an alcohol problem,” Venturini said after Fox concluded. “These are hard-working people.”
Venturini again told the board many who actively assist the homeless are running out of funds.
Helpers Running Low
Betty Redman of The Learning Recovery Center in Wildwood will continue to operate. Only the Sandy Housing voucher program will end Sept. 30, 2015. The center will continue to address the needs of the community. It hopes to gain access to additional housing vouchers and increased services, according to Redman.
Lisa Brocco-Collia, spoke of those living in sub-standard dwellings, “You have conditions in Wildwood. These people are living without running water, without heat without insulation. There are houses in Wildwood that were affected by Superstorm Sandy and their landlords are taking cash from these people, and they are allowing people to live like this without doing repairs on these properties.”
Provide Offenders’ Names
“Again, give us those names and addresses and we will have them investigated,” said Thornton.
“I feel like I’m having a moment of deja vu, with the Faces of Addiction forum that I have been working on because it is, literally, a mirror image of what’s going on with the issues of addiction,” said Freeholder Kristine Gabor. “These do go hand in hand…because they can’t get the treatment they need. It just kind of spirals out of control.”
“I agree it’s an issue we need to do something about. It’s an issue that’s bigger than we think it is,” said Gabor.
Venturini said she hopes to use Homeless Hotline funds already in place and make it straight.
“When we are provided funding from state or federal government, we are given specific guidelines what we can use that funding for,” Gabor said. “We cannot deviate from that instruction. It’s not a pool of money that you can use or that. That ties our hands.”
“Homelessness should never become normal, never,” said Venturini.
For related articles, go to:
– County’s Homeless Need More Helpers; Perceptions Cloud Opinions of Many: http://goo.gl/7YB0fa.
– Life in a Tent, Rough in Wheelchair: http://goo.gl/Q5d2EB.