Seeking to Aid Homeless, Advocates Urge Adding $3 Fee for Documents

CREST HAVEN – Ending homelessness in Cape May County is Cape Hope’s goal, Denise Venturini, a group representative, told freeholders April 12.
She thanked the board for its action that resulted in the Office of Emergency Management being enabled to declare a Code Blue during cold and wet winter nights that enabled warming centers to open to accept those sleeping outside to be inside.
That office had also provided cots and blankets to those centers during those cold nights, Venturini said. She said the group hopes to meet the diverse needs of the homeless. She added the group was “encouraged that our elected officials see the value and realize the potential sums that could be made available if the Homeless Trust Fund were to be adopted by the board to enable the County Clerk’s Office to collect a fee on documents processes.”
County Clerk Rita Fulginiti told the Herald that fund was established in 2009.  Should the board decide to implement it, the clerk would be authorized to increase the recording fee by $3 per document.
She estimated the fund could result in about $85,000 to $90,000 annually to aid the homeless.
Six of the state’s 21 counties, mostly in urban areas, have implemented it, she added. Cumberland County is considering it. Counties that have implemented the fee include Camden, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Passaic and Union.
Summer Feeding Program
Barbara Allison of Erma, also a Cape Hope member, addressed the board on a slightly different matter, a summer children’s feeding program.
She is interested in helping raise $96,000 from donors that would be reimbursed if a Department of Agriculture grant in that amount is received.
A vendor is in place willing to deliver the food for breakfast and lunch from school’s end until its beginning in September. Other volunteers would help at Calvary Chapel and Martin Luther King Center, she said. “We still need sponsors,” she added, noting the deadline was April 18, six days after the meeting. Allison noted Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-1st) was attempting to have that deadline extended so the group could meet its goal.
The program would serve 1,400 children, cost would be $2 each for breakfast and $3 each for lunch.
Freeholders agreed to reach out to persons and organizations that might have been able to help with the funding.
Johnnie Walker, a Cape Hope member, said the concept grew from retired Superintendent Joseph Cirrincione’s concern that many children in the Lower Township School District came from families that did not have sufficient incomes to feed children, so he undertook to personally ensure those in need got food.
“It was shocking to see the number of children not eating breakfast or lunch,” Walker said.
“We have come to the knowledge there are a lot of children who would benefit from this feeding program,” said Venturini. “They may not be living in the woods, but homeless defined for children is not a permanent place of residency. Some are living on a couch with their aunts and uncles.
“This is opening up a new avenue to explore for potential outreach to this population that is at a vulnerable age,” said Venturini, who cited another chronic problem of homelessness, that of young adults, about 18, who find themselves in a homeless situation.