The History of the Homeless Shelter is the Story of Hoboken

Thirty years ago Geoff Curtiss was a young, recently ordained Episcopal reverend and eager to minister to an urban congregation. He found one in Hoboken.

Soon after, he also found himself in a fight raging along several battle lines—about politics, poverty, development, progress, gentrification, class warfare and the role of religion in the community—which resulted in the founding of the Hoboken Homeless Shelter, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary on Thursday.

Curtiss, still in Hoboken as the reverend of All Saints Episcopal Church today, spoke about the shelter's history in a recent interview with Patch. As he tells it, the story starts in the late 1970s, when Hoboken was beginning to scrape away the dirt and grit of its On the Waterfront days and evolve into an attractive bedroom borough.

Hoboken had changed its municipal code to render single room occupancy buildings illegal. Think of a boardinghouse where several people would each rent a room in a building and share a kitchen and bathroom.

“Some of them were really flop houses; the men were not living in good conditions," Curtiss said. "But rather than upgrading the code (the City of Hoboken) basically eliminated it."

Curtiss said that politicians and land developers acted together to eliminate the SROs. “They had bought into an image that Hoboken needed to change its image,” he said. “Banks, real estate participated. It was a successful plan." 

Hoboken changed from being a working class community to a direct appendage of New York City. "It was a process of gentrification that was orchestrated by the changing of municipal zoning laws," Curtiss said.

According to Curtiss this change in city law displaced several low-income people, especially older men who worked the railroads or shipping docks or were retired, and who had never really placed deeper roots anywhere else.

These newly homeless people flooded Hoboken's streets.

"They would wander from church to church asking for help," Curtiss said. "It became clear that there was a tremendous need to respond to these persons who were living in Hoboken and were now being displaced."

Curtiss and the leaders of four other congregations, St. John the Baptist Lutheran Church, St. Matthew Trinity Lutheran Church, Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church and the United Synagogue of Hoboken, had already formed the Hoboken Clergy Coalition to address these problems. They decided to open a shelter for the homeless, initially something basic to serve at least one hot meal and warm beds to a few dozen people. St. John's offered the basement of its home at 300 Bloomfield St., the oldest church building in Hoboken.

But the city opposed that idea.  

"I was told regularly back then 'that this is not your problem Father, it's our problem, we'll deal with the problem,'" Curtiss said. "And I said 'no, that's not correct, these are real issues that this community has to address.'"

When the Shelter first opened in 1982, the city attacked. Then-mayor Steve Cappiello said the clergy coalition was operating the shelter as an illegal hotel that was breaking residential zoning laws. It threatened to fine the shelter daily for building code violations. Using the same law that rendered the SROs illegal, the city sued the coalition to close the shelter.

The battle lines were drawn. "Clearly Hoboken was working hard to become an upwardly mobile community," Curtiss said. "The developers were very much against us doing this. They obviously wanted to displace the poor and the disenfranchised out of the community."

"On the other side," Curtiss continued, "a lot of long-term Hoboken residents knew that many of these people were Hoboken people, formerly Hoboken residents who had been displaced."

The case first went to Hoboken Municipal Court under Judge Maurice Gottlieb before being advanced to the New Jersey Superior Court under Judge Burrell Ives Humphreys. In the meantime the shelter continued to operate illegally, at least in the eyes of the city. As the president of the clergy coalition, Curtiss said, he risked imprisonment.  

After a month Humphreys ruled: the shelter could stay. "Although a municipality's authority to regulate the use of land has a broad sweep, so also does religious freedom," reports quoted Humphreys at the time. "Where those rights conflict, religious freedom must be paramount."

It was a decision later used to set precedent for other cities nationwide. Curtiss said Humphreys harkened to the Magna Carta in arguing that churches have a role to provide sanctuary, and that Hoboken's housing law violated that principal.  

Even with this victory, the shelter's work was only just beginning. It had to find funding and a staff to operate even a basic program. Curtiss said he and the other clergy worked full days with their congregations and then overnight at the shelter.

Others volunteered too, like early directors Claire Nicholetti and Sister Norberta Hunnewinkel.

"We had a strong Roman Catholic community and the members of those congregations were very supportive of us," Curtiss said. "In the beginning we had many of them cooking the evening meal."

Curtiss said local businesses also helped. "Many business on Washington Street realized this was a much better way of taking care of people who were down and out than just putting them in the back of a police cruiser, and driving them to the border and saying don't ever walk in Hoboken again, which is what the police were doing," he said.

The Hoboken Clergy Coalition registered itself as an official non-profit, allowing it to take grant money from the New Jersey state Department of Community Affairs. People started donating. Eventually the local politicians came around.

"I think the political powers that be at this time were surprised by the reaction of the community," Curtiss said. "It's taken several administrations to get to a point where they honor what the shelter is."

Curtiss cited former State Senator Bernard Kenny and former Mayor David Roberts as two who led the change in political thinking.

Now thirty years later the Shelter has expanded. It has gone from being open just a few months during the winter to open every day of the year. It has nearly doubled its bedding capacity. It serves hundreds of meals every day. It has weathered several economic downturns. It has gone from providing just the proverbial fish to helping its guests fish for themselves with programs that have helped people find jobs and return to their own permanent housing.

“I think the Shelter has established and credentialed itself extremely well in this community,” Curtiss said. “It's a real positive response to the issues of poverty that still are deep in Hoboken.”

While many of the other early founders of the Shelter have moved away, retired or died, Curtiss remains actively involved. He has lasted long enough to notice one more thing, a fact involving the “descendants” of those first “yuppies” that brings the story full circle, and perhaps leads the way towards Hoboken healing the wounds of those old battles.

"(The shelter) gives our congregations of upwardly mobile people an opportunity to connect to the issues of poverty," Curtiss said. "Being able to send people to experience the shelter and be transformed by what they experience has been a real positive thing too."