Homeless in Tent City losing their refuge
About 16 men and women get a one-week extension. Then, bulldozers will show up to make way for a warehouse.
Homeless in Tent City losing their refuge
Down-on-their-luck residents of Tent City, a homeless enclave in a wooded area in Bristol Borough, have next to nothing – a few tarps, blankets, and clothes. Some have a heater to warm their shelter and a chair to sit outside.
There’s no electricity, no running water.
By next Monday, they’ll need to pack up their meager belongings and find another place to call home. Their refuge is about to be leveled for a warehouse.
“I have nowhere else to go,” 46-year-old John Haacke said Monday, as eviction loomed. “I get $200 a month from welfare, I’m looking for a job, and I’m living within my means.
“I can’t find any place to rent for that kind of money,” he added. “Nobody wants you – you become a misfit.”
Haacke, a laid-off computer network specialist for IBM, and about 15 other residents did get a one-week, last-minute reprieve.
“You have until May 7, then they’ll start taking stuff down,” Bristol Borough Police Sgt. Joe Morrs announced. “My boss and the owner said you got an extra week.”
A big trash receptacle had been provided for the original deadline, and a handful of residents packed up and moved over the weekend. Some said they were moving last night, while others said they’d wait till the bulldozers arrived.
The 23-acre site next to Lower Bucks Hospital has housed the homeless – many with physical or mental disabilities – for about 20 years. The numbers fluctuate daily, with some men and women setting up for a few weeks, others for several years.
William Yates, 23, who grew up in foster homes in Trenton, has lived in Tent City for four years, he said. He also has lived behind the nearby former Pathmark, and was planning to move last night to a wooded spot in Bensalem.
The high-school graduate said he’s looking for work – “anything that pays me.”
Yates sat outside a tent with his pit bull, Nayla, and Scott Brookshire, 51, who has been there for six weeks.
“I don’t need medication, I’m not on disability, I get $200 in food stamps a month – that’s it,” Brookshire said.
“You’re told you can look for work, but I have no transportation to get there,” he said. “Give me a bus pass so I can get around.”
Most of Tent City’s residents are men, because Bucks County has few shelters for men, Brookshire said.
“If I did drugs, I could find a place. If I was an alcoholic, I could find a place,” he said. “If you’re just on hard times, there’s nowhere to go.”
Looking to help relocate the residents in emergency shelters, Allen Johnson of the Bucks County Department of Mental Health made his way around the site.
“I want to see how many people are interested,” Johnson said.
Some could be helped by the Penndel Mental Health Center or the Lenape Valley Mental Health Center, he said.
The Bucks County Homeless Shelter in Bristol Township has 80 beds and consistently has a waiting list.
Johnson was a volunteer for the county’s annual “point-in-time” homeless count in January. That survey found 49 individuals and one couple.
The findings included:
- 86 percent, were men;
- 48 percent were ages 31 to 50; 28 percent. 51-60; 14 percent, 18-30; and 10 percent, over 60;
- 88 percent were white; 10 percent, black
- There were 9 reported veterans.
Jim Sandonato told Johnson he would be interested in a shelter, and his wife, Diane, who has “mental health issues,” could use help.
Sandonato has been at Tent City for two months, and his wife lives there or with her mother. “I couldn’t live with her parents,” he said.
He lost his job as a welder in 2009, after 13 years, and the couple’s three children were put in foster care a year ago. Sandonato and his wife lost their Levittown apartment in January and lived in his Pontiac Aztek till it broke down.
He lives on $200 a month in food stamps and another $200 for temporary disability – “not physical, not mental; anxiety about everyday life.”
He gets meals and a monthly shower at nearby churches and his mail at the welfare office.
If he doesn’t get a place n a shelter, what will he do at next week’s dealine?
“It’s in God’s hands,” he said.
Welcome to the Rethuglian dream. Qualified people unemployed through no fault of their own, and then thrown away. Who are we?? What have we become??— stillphilbill
Comment removed.- I just passed gas and contributed to global warming. Is that Obamas fault, too?— stillphilbill
- I am not a big Obama supporter. I actually think he is an ineffective president. But he did not get us into this situation. It was years in the making before he became President. No one becoming president when he did could have fixed the economy any faster or slower then it is happening.— zippy1346
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- that's not what he said zippy. reagan inherited a pile of shyte from carter and he got things moving.W inherited a recession + 9/11 happened nine months into his presidency.enough with the fing excuses with this guy. all barry did was double down on deficit spending and gave handouts to his union/green/wallstreet buddies. wouldn't it be nice to have that trillion $ stimulus back to help out these people? btw which will cost a tril and a half after interest. zippy you voted for the guy right...? don't deny it, loads of the misinformed masses did too.— FBO4ever
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- FBO4ever: What history books have you been reading? I'd like to know because I'm short on toilet paper.— BillHicksLives!
- As a nation we cannot survive another 4 years of Obama. So the best thing Obama could do for the US would be to resign.— ArnoldZepple
- This has nothing to do with Obama you morons. It's capitalism, it's technology, it's all the progress that you gulp down your throats every day. Think about it. More and more people born every year, but with progress comes less and less jobs, and even MORE efficiency. This is just the course the world is going to take.— corporatehuman
- I just want to say that the Obama haters are correct!! It's his fault!! Yes, it's true. I've checked the records and there was never any homeless people before he came to office! Just one more blot on his presidential ledger! The economy was great and then we hit recession on the day he took office. There were no wars until we invaded Iraq and afghanistan on the day he took office! I also hear tell that he is responsible for the snakehead fish that are destroying ecosystems nationwide!! The sad thing is I'm not even an Obama supporter but I often wonder whether you knuckle-dragging dimwits actually believe the stuff you write in your comments. I mean, are you that shallow and silly that you must blame the current president for everything simply because mommy and daddy were republicans? Or because he's just a little too "tan" for you?— Sewellmatt
- A terribly depressing story. So many with graduate school educations or advanced skills out of work. They did what they were told in order to obtain "The American Dream" and look at where they are.— ANGRY AL 2
- The common thread that holds this together is mental health issues. There are numerous MH organizations, both voluntary and state organized that continually reach out to these unfortunates, but federal law prohibits compulsary diagnosis. Perhaps if a prerequisite to recieving any aid would be a complete mental and physical evaluation and then the aid contingent on the recipiant following a proscribed course of treatment and training including acceptance of maybe living in a group home and taking medications, such problems could be greatly reduced. Instead of a story about people living in such conditions, perhaps an in-depth investigation of how much money is wasted by the state on high salaries, trips and conferences to "study" these conditions. It seems that when the state orders cuts in the Community Mental Health System, the cuts can be made in the redundancy of programs and high salaries paid to the executives of these agencies. I've volunteered to take such homeless to schelter churches during severe weather periods (especially the cold) and I've often wondered why the clients I help are not in a hospital or mental health group home. Yet, when the weather breaks, the same people are right back where they where until the next cold spell.— phillysgr8
- it also has to do with about 500 million people being added to the global workforce. the jobs that those people would have had are outsourced to those nations. remember, Reagan raised taxes 4 times to help bail out the economy and he too created a huge deficit. It sometimes take a while for recessions/depressions to end. See the 1930's. For the past 4 years the Republicans have done nothing to help turn the economy around. All they want is failure from the President.— joegrink
