Howell Homeless Camp Scrambling To Relocate Days Before Christmas

HOWELL, NJ — Advocates for a group of homeless residents are scrambling to find a place for them to go after the group was told they must leave the Howell encampment site by Friday.

Steve Brigham, a longtime advocate for the homeless who has spoken out on their behalf going back to when they were camped in an area known as Tent City in Lakewood several years ago, was seeking help in finding places for the group to go and storage for donations on Thursday.

"It looks like we are being forced out of our wonderful camp in Howell 4 days before Christmas," Brigham wrote in a post on Facebook. "We had a beautiful camp here with no problems, and we weren’t costing the Township, or the taxpayer any money at all. Couldn’t they wait until after Christmas?" The post was later deleted.

The group — which was 12 people at one point but now down to seven residents, according to an Asbury Park Press report — has been living at the site off Route 9 in Howell since 2014, when Tent City was razed by bulldozers after a protracted legal battle between advocates for the group and Lakewood Township officials.

The Howell site, at 5998 Route 9, was owned by the township at the time and Howell officials welcomed the group, allowing them to live there under the umbrella of Destiny's Bridge Transitional Encampment, which Brigham runs, assisting the homeless with basic needs and supplies. In 2017, the township passed a resolution allowing Destiny's Bridge and its residents to stay as long as there wasn't any trouble.

However, Howell officials decided in early 2018 to auction off the 11.6-acre property, which. and it was purchased for $1.6 million by Dr. Richard H. Roberts of Lakewood, a pharmaceutical company CEO.

Deputy Mayor Robert Nicastro, at a July Howell Township Council meeting, said each of the encampment's residents signed a release saying they understood the camp was a temporary arrangement and that the town could close the camp at any time, NJ.com reported.

Terms of the sale, which has not yet been finalized, included a clause saying the buyer was responsible for relocating the encampment. The resolution approved for the public auction of the land said: "The property is currently occupied by an unknown number of homeless individuals. The successful bidder agrees that all responsibility for relocating those individuals from this property shall be the sole responsibility of the successful bidder, and the Township shall not be required to assist, financially or otherwise, in the relocation of the individuals on this property."

The goal was to prevent a repeat of what happened with Tent City, which made national headlines when bulldozers razed the site on Cedar Bridge Avenue as protesters stood by the road, begging for help for the group.

Roberts offered to give each of the residents of the Howell encampment $1,000 and assistance with "reasonable" moving expenses, the Asbury Park Press reported. Roberts also told the Press Brigham had requested a small piece of land where Destiny's Bridge could run a business, but Roberts refused that request.

Brigham has said most of those living in the encampment have jobs but those jobs do not pay enough to cover the cost of housing; many ride bicycles to get to and from their employment.

"The buyer hasn’t come through with the relocation assistance that was a requirement in the contract, so the residents will be scrambling to find a place to sleep tonight," Brigham said Thursday in the now-deleted Facebook post, as he requested help finding a place to store donations to the group.

"Minister Brigham is understandably concerned about whether Howell and Dr. Roberts will meet with me to resolve the situation cooperatively," Jeffrey J. Wild, an attorney with the firm Lowenstein Sandler, who has been representing Destiny's Bridge pro bono, said in an email late Thursday. "I and my homeless clients are still hopeful that we can, since the relocation help needed to close the camp cooperatively and humanely would cost Dr. Roberts very little."

Nicastro, however, put the onus on Destiny's Bridge, saying Roberts' proposed offers have been met with resistance or outright refusal, he told NJ101.5. Brigham has said the group voted to reject the offer of $1,000 per person because the money would cover just two weeks in a motel.

Cindy Copp-Eins, who started the GoFundme to help raise funds for the transition costs, said the goal is to provide the homeless residents of the encampment enough money for a head start to truly transition out of the encampment, with enough to cover housing for a year, a used vehicle to get to work and a smidge for emergencies.

The GoFundme campaign set up to help Destiny's Bridge remains active. Click here to contribute.

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NOTE: This article has been updated with comment from Jeffrey Wild, the attorney for Destiny's Bridge, and to note the deletion of Steve Brigham's Facebook post.

A view of the property at 5998 Route 9 in Howell, as seen from the road, via Google Maps