NEWARK, N.J. — For William Danicko Beck, living on the streets here has been “a real struggle.” Beck, 47, has been homeless for years. He often has to deal with challenges like cold weather, which is so harsh during the winter that he can “hardly think straight.” He also fears for the safety of himself and his female friends, who he said, are often targets of assault.
“I would be so tired — been up for days just not trying to go in too much of a deep sleep,” Beck said, “because who knows what might happen?”
Yet, Beck’s struggles may come to an end with a new housing community developed by the city, which will give Beck and other people in Newark without homes a roof over their heads.
Newark, a mostly Black and Latino city of 305,000 residents, unveiled Hope Village II, its latest transitional housing community for at-risk homeless residents on Monday. In the city’s South Ward section, it has four clusters of container homes for 20 residents made out of shipping containers, each with a bathroom, kitchen and Wi-Fi. The city also recently partnered with The Nature Conservancy to secure a $28,000 grant to plant about 50 trees and close to 20 shrubs.
In addition to housing, the 20 Hope Village II residents will have access to social services to help with drug addiction, job placement and more.
“Homelessness is a result of a crack in our system that has existed way before our time — a crack that is widening and deepening as years go on and is not being addressed,” Mayor Ras Baraka said Monday at a news conference. “People in Newark, in cities like ours, are burdened with the idea or the weight of taking care of a national problem in local places.”
“We’re not running from it,” he added.
Hope Village II is the second installment of “The Path Home,” an initiative Baraka launched with the city’s Office of Homeless Services to end…
Read the full article here
