Second Firemen’s Retirement Home Being Planned

In 1897, a wealthy family in northern New Jersey saw the need for a place for the state’s firefighters to retire to. They set aside the cost of constructing a building that could be a home to retired firefighters of the state for little cost.
Over a three-year period, a building was constructed on 88 acres in Boonton, Morris County. On Sept. 22, 1900, the New Jersey Fireman’s Home admitted its first residents. For 112 years, the home has been providing affordable adult living spaces for any firefighter in the state who chooses to apply for it.
The home is a licensed long-term care facility in the state, and features 95 beds: 75 which are for ambulatory, more mobile residents, and about 20 beds that are for residents who require more specified-care.
At $850 per month, the cost for residency at the home is a considerable amount less than most long-term care facilities in the state, and is funded almost entirely through the state and donations. The home receives no federal funding, and receives most of its state-allocated money from a 2 percent surtax accumulated from fire insurance sales in the state.
The facility’s staff is quoted on the home’s website www.njfh.org/ in priding themselves in requiring a higher standard of care to create a greater quality of living than provided in most nursing and assisted-living homes in the state. No smells of cleaning chemicals, constant activities, and even weekly wheelchair servicing are a common sight at the home, the website says.
Residents currently range in age from 57 to 99, with the only requirement for applying for residency at the home being that the applicant served at least one full year as a firefighter in the state, stemming from the original mission of the Lathrop family to “provide a place for New Jersey’s heroes to grow old.”
Various trips are offered for residents, ranging from museums and concerts to parades and dances. The biggest trip each year is to the New Jersey State Fireman’s Convention in Wildwood, where an average of 15 residents are invited to attend the weekend’s festivities and are recognized by the State Fireman’s Association for their services.
The home also has a large fireman’s museum on its grounds, featuring antique apparatus, vintage tools, and a wide variety of photos from over the years. The museum also has a large arrangement of fire helmets from across the state that has been donated by the state’s fire departments.
The state fireman’s association has been actively working to construct a second firemen’s home in Southern New Jersey for several years, and appear to moving closer to accomplishing the goal. In a recent poll of statewide membership, a survey showed that 64 percent of the association’s members were in favor a constructing a home in the Southern New Jersey region to make affordable assisted living available to South Jersey’s firefighters, with the Route 42 area in Lower Camden/ Gloucester County selected as the most viable area.
Knoll, 19, of Eldora, can be contacted by email at bknolljr4cmcherald @yahoo.com. He is a student at Rowan University.