Homelessness on the rise

New Jersey’s homeless population shrank between 2005 and 2007, but advocates for the poor say the faltering economy is reversing the trend.

Accoding to a survey done by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there were 17,314 homeless persons in New Jersey in 2007, or about 20 for every 10,000 New Jerseyans. That was down about 11 percent over the two-year period. In addition, the state saw decreases in the all categories of homelessness during that time period.

The state, according to the survey, has fared better than the rest of the nation — which has 22 homeless persons per 10,000 people with a greater percentage (18 percent to 15 percent) considered chronically homeless and a dramatic 42 percent being unsheltered, compared with just 14 percent in New Jersey.

Part of the reason for this is New Jersey’s relative wealth — the per capita income in the state is higher than most other states and just 8 percent of New Jerseyans live below the poverty line, compared with 13 percent nationally. Of course, the cost of living here is higher, which distorts some of the economic numbers.

According to the survey, there was one category in which New Jersey outpaced the rest of the country — a troubling statistic that could help explain the anecdotal evidence being compiled by advocates for the homeless: A greater percentage of New Jerseyans face what is called a “severe housing cost burden — 19 percent — than the rest of the nation.

As the recession — what some are calling “The Great Recession” — deepens and more people face job loss, reduced hours (and wages) and increased costs for fuel, heat, food and other necessities, more and more people could find themselves facing homelessness.

Lisanne Finston, director at Elijah’s Promise in New Brunswick, told The Home News Tribune she is seeing evidence of this already. Surveys being collected to help prepared for the biennial point in time survey, she said, are showing “the number of people that we have counted are significantly higher than last year” and that, “Across the board, in each category, the numbers are up, we’re at least 10 percent higher and getting to 20 percent.”

“Anecdotally, we’re seeing people coming in who have suffered foreclosures and have exhausted all their resources,” Finston said. “Not only have the national trends reversed, but we are only at the beginning of how bad it’s going to get.”

Mercer County advocates, quoted in The Times of Trenton, are seeing the same trends. The county had experienced a 47 percent drop in the number of homeless people, according to the survey, but Mary Gay Abbott-Young, executive director of Rescue Mission of Trenton, told the paper that her “organization has been providing shelter for additional people for several months now.” She reported a 21 percent increase for the first two weeks of January, compared with the same time last year.

Abbott-Young said the economic crisis — a factor driving more people into shelters — has also resulted in a decrease in furniture and clothing donations, but the organization received monetary donations during the holidays last month.

“We’re going to have an increase in factors known to contribute to homelessness,” she said, “unemployment, increase in stress levels, mortgage foreclosures.”

We have entered a dark economic period, but we remain among the richest nations in history. Surely, we can do better than to have our people living in shelters or on the streets.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Snowy mess

This morning’s commute in Central Jersey was a bit messy, but not the tough trudge that forecasters were predicting yesterday. But that is normal.

We tend to overreact to weather forecasts, assuming that what is being predicted is going to happen — or, more often, we hear regional forecasts and localize them in our minds. So when New York television stations predict 6 or 8 inches for points “north and west of the city,” which ends up being the headline and the promo, we assume that 6- to 8-inch storm across the state, ignoring the maps showing that southern Middlesex County, the Shore area and Burlington were likely to get significantly less.

So, the drive was fine for me, heading from Kendall Park to Princeton. And I have a half day at the office — it’s Annie’s birthday — but I will have to clear the driveway when I get home.

I hate the winter.

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Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie The Houdini chapter

We arrived home tonight about 7 p.m., long day of work behind us, to a bit of a surprise.

Looking in the window, there were dozens of dog toys littering the living room. I left the house today at 10:45, the toys in the dogs’ toybox, but we have a friend’s college-age son walking them at midday. I figured he let them play with the toys and left them where they were when he left — no problem.

Except, that’s not what happened. As I took out my keys to unlock the door, Annie saw Sophie in the living room, loose. Loose?!? Was Rosie out, too? Sophie had escaped from her pen, somehow leaving Rosie behind. What happened? Did she leap the gate?

Turns out that Carlo left the lower gate hinge unlocked — or so we think — and Sophie, who is the burlier of the two pups, pushed her way through. Rosie, thinner and faster, probably couldn’t do so.

It was a bit of a scare, but there was no damage — Sophie confined her business to the newspapers by the entranceway and we’d closed the doors to the bedrooms.

But it was the culmination (I hope) to a trying week during which both Annie and I were at the end of our wits — they weren’t listening, were peeing in the house, picking up every leaf and stick outside and eating them — just a very frustrating time.

I think we my have contributed to it, however, because we forgot that they were puppies and were showing our frustration. And in our effort to not hit the dogs or react in anger, we were coming off whiny and losing control of them.

I’m hoping that, by recognizing our own failings in this mission, we can do a better job with them, take control and regain our own sanity.

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Bad medicine

You know things are rough for New Jersey when pharmacuetical companies are announcing mergers and layoffs — as Pfizer and Wyeth did yesterday.

According to NJ.com:

The giant pharmaceutical company, wrestling with a dearth of new drugs and expecting a major revenue hit next year when its cholesterol-fighter Lipitor faces generic competition, attempted to strengthen its business by acquiring Wyeth, which will give it more than a single blockbuster drug to help ride out the coming storm.

The one-time rivals laid out plans yesterday for a $68 billion deal that will provide Pfizer with a range of products, including lucrative biological medicines such as the arthritis treatment Enbrel, vaccines and over-the-counter remedies like Advil and Robitussin. Industry analysts said by acquiring Wyeth, Pfizer stands to increase its revenue by 50 percent, at least in the short
term.

The companies — which will retain the Pfizer name once the deal is approved — would not discuss potential layoffs, but NJ.com

The acquisition of Morris County-based Wyeth, which appears to defy the credit crisis that has constrained corporate financing, will only heighten the wave of job losses occurring across the pharmaceutical industry.

Even before the acquisition was announced, Pfizer had disclosed plans to slash 10 percent of its global work force, including 800 researchers, by 2011. As part of the
transaction, Pfizer expects to reduce the global work force of the combined company by 15 percent, including the previously announced cuts. Analysts say the number of jobs lost could amount to 20,000 worldwide

Wyeth has two facilities in New Jersey, including one on Ridge Road in South Brunswick. There is no word how these facilities will be affected — but the smiles on the CEOs’ faces (above, during yesterday’s press conference) makes it clear that the companies’ employees should be very afraid.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.