HEART Combats Homelessness in Middlesex County

To get people off the streets, you have to go to the streets.

The Homelessness Empowerment Action and Response Team (HEART) does just that. A project of Elijah's Promise, the group consists of a director, a coordinator, two peer outreach workers, and a case manager.

HEART's goals are simple: find and assist homeless and under served residents of Middlesex County with finding shelter, medical care and social services.

The idea of HEART is to bring assistance directly to the people who need it most, rather than waiting for them to come to Elijah's Promise.

HEART is run by Elijah's Promise, but is a joint project with UMDNJ, Middlesex County's "Coming Home" project, a 10-year plan that focuses on ending hunger and homelessness in Middlesex County, and is funded by the Middlesex County Homeless Trust Fund.

According to the New Jersey Point in Time Count, 1,145 homeless men, women and children were reported living in Middlesex County as of January 2012.

Of those 1,145, 228 had nowhere to go, with the remainder living in shelters or hotels, according to the report.

The largest number of homeless residents surveyed reported New Brunswick as having been their last place of residence before becoming homeless.

On Thursday mornings, HEART can be found on Jersey Avenue in New Brunswick, but they traverse all over Middlesex County, bringing food, clothing and assistance to people in the streets.

The team is prepared to assist with a number of social services and legal questions, including welfare, detox, warrants, government assistance and temporary housing, said Yvette Molina, Director of Community Services for Elijah's Promise.

They are also on the lookout for health issues in their clients, particularly mental health problems, Molina said.

In New Brunswick, the group set up coffee pots and handed out bag lunches to a group of mostly day laborers who were waiting in the cold for work to come.

Food acts as a very effective bridge to get people to open up about their needs and problems, said HEART Coordinator Diana Lapp.

"Trust building starts with giving them items that they need," she said.

The peer outreach workers are an integral part of trust building as well, Molina said. Formerly homeless themselves, the peers talk with the people they meet on the street with perspectives of having had similar experiences, and show that rehabilitation is possible, Molina said.

However, people stymied in depression or illness are not waiting on street corners for the van to arrive. In those cases, the workers must go directly to them, some living under bridges, in the woods, or in other out of the way places.

Juan Flores, a case manager with UMDNJ said the group has to aid both the immediate needs of food and shelter, and then look beyond the current needs to see what's causing them.

"A client may say "I need a house, isn't that obvious?" (But) what keeps you from that house?" Flores said. "How do we connect that bridge?"

Detox housing is available in Bergen County, and UMDNJ has mental health care. But facilities fill up quickly and often times, homeless residents in the county must be sent out of county and sometimes out of state for treatment, and it is disruptive, Flores said.

The overreaching problem of inadequate mental health care services and treatment for homeless and those in poverty is an issue that does beyond Middlesex County, Molina said. But HEART does what they can, sitting down with people in the streets to see what they need, driving them to clinics and referring them to agencies that can provide them with treatment.

"(We need to) stop focusing on the stigma and focus on solutions," Molina said.