"The Houseless" seem to get targeted for nothing more than being unable to stay hidden
Sure it's true that there may be bad apples in every bunch, but to punish ALL for the wrongs of others is also being bad. The aforementioned happens more times than not when it comes to being "The Houseless" in the United States of America.
How about we genuinely ALL work together to overcome ALL the wrongs taking place?
WELL?
If you are still a bit lost, please take in the passages found in Scripture which "The Houseless" has listed to the left of this posting.
Thank you!
Homeless
feel targeted by Hackensack's quality-of-life crackdown - See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/recap/Homeless_feel_targeted_by_Hackesacks_quality_of_life_crackdown.html?page=all#sthash.pmshWfYy.dpuf
Donald
Mayfield doesn’t deny he has “a bad criminal record” that includes
carjacking, kidnapping and weapons offenses. - See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/recap/Homeless_feel_targeted_by_Hackesacks_quality_of_life_crackdown.html?page=all#sthash.FJhzWw6i.dpuf
Donald Mayfield doesn’t deny he has “a bad criminal record”
that includes carjacking, kidnapping and weapons offenses.
But with treatment and medication for paranoid schizophrenia, he
changed his life, he said. He has stayed out of trouble and is no
longer “delusional” or hearing voices.
Mayfield said he suffered a setback last month when Hackensack
police stopped and arrested him and two other residents of the Bergen
County homeless shelter for obstructing a sidewalk. He spent seven
days in jail, panicked about missing his medication or losing
housing. Now, he’s worried about going back onto the streets again.
He was swept up in a 2-month-old initiative launched by Hackensack
Police Director Michael Mordaga to crack down on quality-of-life
crimes at a time when the city is investing in a major downtown
rehabilitation push that has attracted developers with plans for
high-end housing.
 |
THOMAS E. FRANKLIN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Donald Mayfield, who lives at a homeless shelter, says he was
arrested for no good reason.
|
As part of the effort, police frequently patrol places where
homeless gather, stop them, check ID, identifications, run warrants
and issue summonses for violations.
Police say they’re making the streets safer and cleaner; many
residents and business owners agree. But homeless people say they’re
being harassed. Mordaga, who took charge of the department in
February, said police have compassion but zero tolerance for crime
and violations.
“It’s not just people standing asking for money,” Mordaga
said. “It’s an intimidating situation where people are afraid.
The majority of these people have extensive criminal records,” he
said about the homeless.
Homelessness is a longstanding concern in Hackensack. As county
seat, the city is headquarters for social service programs and a
county homeless shelter that attracts people from all over Bergen and
beyond
The initiative — which also involves the Bergen County Sheriff’s
Office and Little Ferry and South Hackensack police departments —
is for the welfare of both the community and the homeless themselves,
Mordaga said.
Police have been stopping people to ask how they are and where
they’re from, so they can know who is staying in Hackensack and who
might need help. Mordaga said police are entitled to ask the homeless
for ID, but people aren’t obligated to provide it.
Mordaga noted that people are taken “almost daily” from the
street by ambulance because of alcohol intoxication. During a recent
heat wave, police went to homeless hangouts and encampments and
handed out fruit and water.
Many of the homeless are from out of town and police have to keep
their eye on them, Mordaga said.
“These aren’t people down on their luck because they lost
their jobs on Wall Street. The majority are criminals out there with
lengthy criminal records,” he said.
Police knew Donald Mayfield’s record when he was stopped July 17
because an officer had questioned him days earlier during a random
stop. Mayfield said he walked a block from the shelter to Hudson
Street and stopped with three others to pool money for water and
Gatorade.
Officers spotted the exchange of cash and stopped to question
them. A police search turned up nothing illicit, but Mayfield and the
others were arrested on the charge of obstructing a public
passageway. A 21-year-old college student in the group who recently
was kicked out of her home was released within 45 minutes. Another
man was jailed for 13 days.
Mayfield, 44, who was locked up for a week, said he was distraught
and panicked in jail over whether he’d lose his place at the
shelter and miss his monthly anti-psychotic medication. Now he
worries he’ll be arrested again.
Mayfield, who broke down twice while telling his story, feared
leaving the shelter days ago for a doctor’s appointment: “I had
to tell myself, stop looking behind you,” he said.
Up to that point, Mayfield had “come a long way,” said Julia
Orlando, director of the county’s Housing, Health and Human
Services Center in Hackensack. He is respectful and tries hard to do
right, she said, and he’s a candidate for assistance for permanent
housing.
Orlando said she is concerned about the police effort and the July
17 incident in which Mayfield and two other shelter residents were
arrested.
“We don’t want to be criminalizing the homeless because it’s
not good for anyone,” she said. “It doesn’t address the
underlying problem. It pushes them farther and farther away from
services. If people are afraid to come here, we’re not going to be
able to assist them.”
The police approach varies in other communities. In Englewood,
Chief Arthur O’Keefe said officers will approach anyone who appears
to be homeless to check if they need assistance or to direct them to
services. The focus is not criminal enforcement, he said, but police
will ticket for violations such as open containers of alcohol.
In Passaic, police generally leave the homeless alone unless
they’re responding to a complaint of a violation, said Detective
Andy White, a police spokesman. Police take panhandling seriously, he
said, and will issue warnings and summonses.
Hackensack’s Mordaga said it was not unusual for bail to be set
for people with criminal histories or who are from out of state.
Mayfield, a former Bergen County resident, had been living in
Mississippi prior to coming to the shelter.
“Our officers don’t routinely arrest people for blocking
sidewalks,” he said. “That’s not something our officers do, but
if they’re standing there and blocking the sidewalk and refuse to
move, and create a disturbance, they’re going to be arrested.”
Mayfield claimed he didn’t resist and wasn’t asked to move,
and that he invited police to search him. During an interview with
The Record, a Hudson Street resident came out of his home to defend
Mayfield, saying he saw the incident and that Mayfield did nothing
wrong.
Another man, Terri, who wanted only his first name used, said he
got a summons for an open alcohol container. At a court appearance
July 10, he said he was accused of hindering apprehension because he
gave a false name. But the police officer had misspelled his last
name, he said.
He was locked up for three days over the charge and was released
only because his brother bailed him out. “They’re trying to make
me a criminal,” he said.
Terri said he’d been stopped by police three or four other times
in the past six weeks.
“They’re stopping people for no reason,” he said. “Me and
my friend were smoking cigarettes. Three cars stopped. They said we
can’t stand there.”
Others say homelessness, and the resulting quality-of-life
problems, have hurt business and scared away customers.
Jade Linton, a retail manager at Pep Boys on River Street, said
homeless people often use the automotive store’s bathroom; they use
the sink to bathe, leaving a mess. “From what they say, they don’t
have anywhere else to go,” Linton said.
But she also welcomed the police effort, saying the presence of
homeless hurts business.
“It scares away customers,” she said. “It deters them and
brings the value of the place down.”
At Costco, a general manager complained to police that panhandlers
approached customers two or three times a day and sometimes were
confrontational. One threatened him with a hypodermic needle, he
said. On a few occasions, cars in the parking lot were broken into.
The businesses are next to a riverside walkway, which was popular
with homeless until recently, when Mordaga had it cleaned up, had
shrubs trimmed and focused patrols there.
James Brady — who stayed at the county homeless shelter until a
week ago, when he moved into an apartment — said the homeless
community included troublesome people, but that wasn’t the whole
picture.
“There’s a large range of personalities among the homeless,”
he said. “That’s what bothers me the most, when they pick on
people who don’t deserve it. I don’t accept that.”
He also said that homeless people in the past were left alone if
they stayed out of sight and kept their area clean. “That has
changed,” said Brady, who added that he had been stopped “six or
seven times in as many weeks.”
Other homeless people said the city is becoming less welcoming.
For Kathleen Salvo, who lives and owns a business near the
county’s homeless shelter, that’s precisely the message the city
should send. She said people regularly came into her neighborhood and
slept in back yards and urinated on lawns.
“It’s not just the homeless. There are people who come here
and just hang out from all over because we let them,” she said.
Salvo said the city’s reputation has changed for the better
because of improved policing.
“We think this is not hurting anyone’s civil rights; it’s a
safety measure,” she said. “They’re finding people that have
records and that shouldn’t be in Hackensack.”
Homelessness factors high in policing, Mordaga said, but he noted
that the initiative also focused on motor vehicle violations and
narcotics.
Bergen County has made strides to reduce homelessness in recent
years, say community leaders, with improvements in services and more
emphasis on moving people into permanent housing.
David Martinez, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, which is
part of the initiative, said homelessness was “not only a
Hackensack problem, but a county problem overall.”
“We’ve noticed countless instances where we would find
squatters in abandoned buildings or in a resident’s back yard or
shed,” he said.
He added that the quality-of-life initiative is aimed at improving
conditions both for the homeless and the community.
Orlando, the county housing and human services director, said the
goals of public agencies including police are the same — to get the
homeless off the streets and into services and housing.
“As a homelessness advocate, our main focus is to get people
into housing,” she said. “If people are arrested, that goes on
their record and it makes it harder for us to do that for them.”
Email: adely@northjersey.com
Related:
Norfolk,
Conn. Bully and/or HATER seeking harm unto “The Houseless” –
www.Norfolk-Now.Houseless.net - See more at:
http://norfolk-now.houseless.net/norfolk-conn-bully-andor-hater-seeking-harm-unto-the-houseless-www-norfolk-now-houseless-net/#sthash.oQxtgVEO.dpuf
