The Jersey City Independent "

Part Two of a Two-Part Series. You can read Part One here.

The homes along the Palisades of Hudson County offer some of the most striking views of Manhattan.

Carmen Maysonet, 48, won her slice of the skyline the hard way. She became homeless for the first time a year ago, and she now resides among a hidden community of cliff dwellers on land bordering Jersey City, Union City and Hoboken.

Maysonet lives in a 4-foot-high shack made of wood, tarp and blankets, large enough for a bed and a small night table. There is a calendar on one wall, a morning prayer posted on another. Votive candles are lit all around the room — that’s the trick, she says, for keeping warm on cold winter days.

The encampments, known simply as the Palisades by locals, have existed since the 1980s. It is home to as many as 60 people, mostly transient. Fifteen people reside there permanently, according to April Kuzas, vice president of local neighborhood group, the Washington Park Association, and chairwoman of the organization’s homeless committee.

Few people in the region have forged such personal relationships with the Palisades community as Kuzas, who makes weekly treks down the cliff, bearing food, clothes and even appointment dates to social services. This type of bond is the secret to successful outreach, she says — especially at the Palisades. She has come to learn the intricate social infrastructure and diverse categories of homelessness that exist here. Many residents are chronically homeless and resist housing resources, but not all. Kuzas feels that, stoked by economic collapse, not only has the Palisades become a symbol of the county’s current crisis in affordable housing, but it represents one of the most unique homeless outreach conundrums. It is the best housing option for some of its residents.

Maysonet defies traditional profiles of the Palisades population. On one hand, she is actively seeking housing.

“I’m just hoping someone will help me get out of here,” she says. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. If I knew where else to go to get help, believe me, I would have went.”

But in the meantime, Maysonet resists shelters. Part of the reason is personal; part is practical. She’s been to shelters before and found the experience harrowing.

“I’ve had bad experience in shelters,” she says. “[Some] people, they kind of [use] abusive language talk, and they push you around, they take your things. I didn’t like it at all.”

Also, some of the shelters in Hudson County, like Hoboken and PERC, require residents to leave early in the morning. But in the bitter winter months, hitting the streets at that hour is not just a comfort issue, Maysonet says, but also a medical issue. She suffers from a chronic infection, for which she receives regular medical treatment.

“They get you up at 7 in the morning,” says Maysonet. “Where am I going to go at 7 in the morning, unless you’re working?”

Maysonet is working. She is a part-time cleaning lady and earns $50 to $60 per week. But in the current economy, she has difficulty finding enough hours. Employment prospects are only aggravated by a nagging back injury and side effects of her medication.

“I get all sorts of medication,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll be up [on the street] and I get dizzy and I have to come back [down] here.”

As she sees it, if she slept overnight at a shelter, she would only have to return back to the Palisades in the morning. So why leave in the first place?

Maysonet is stuck between a rock — the economy — and a hard place — the affordable housing crisis in Hudson County. She never bothered applying for Section 8 housing subsidies because she knows the deal: There is currently a 10-year waiting list, and that waiting list is closed.

“I ain’t got no where to go, and rents are high,” says Maysonet. “I wish I had Section 8. It takes too long. By the time I get Section 8, I’ll be an old lady.”

She can’t even afford a single-room occupancy, which averages about $125 dollars per week. She knows that if she splits the cost of single room, as many of her neighbors have before, that a roommate might not come through, and she’d get beat for the total rent.

Hudson County’s affordable housing agenda is “very active,” according to Susan Mearns, director of the Hudson County Division of Housing and Community Development. In her 21 years in the field, she has overseen the creation of 3,000 affordable housing units. A county-wide coalition has also released a 10-year plan to end homelessness, with a wish list including 650 units, specifically for the chronically homeless; 178 for a sub-population of the homeless; and 400 for homeless families. It also helped fund a $1 million 8-unit permanent housing project, designed for the chronically homeless, which broke ground earlier this month.

But county government often encounters challenges in achieving its active agenda. New Jersey is a home-rule state, meaning municipalities are self-governing, Mearns adds. The county can only offer incentives through tax abatements, zoning or board of adjustment ordinances, and by providing resolutions needed to apply for state funds.

And not all elected officials in the region feel the need for more affordable housing. Councilman Michael Lenz of Hoboken’s 3rd Ward feels there is already enough and building more will not alleviate homelessness.

“It’s not unlike parking. People say you can solve the parking problem in Hoboken by building more garages,” Lenz says. “But to the degree that you build more garages, more people bring cars into town. Homelessness is not a local problem.”

Suzanne Byrne, executive director at the York Street Project, could not disagree more.

“Homelessness can be addressed locally,” Byrne says. “[It can be done] simply by passing local ordinances.”

Byrne is referring specifically to inclusionary zoning ordinances — currently in place in Bayonne and Weehawken, but not in Jersey City, Hoboken or Union City — that require a percentage of all new development to be affordable.

Still, Mearns admits that for some people, particularly those living at the Palisades, affordable housing may not be affordable enough.

“We prioritize all of our projects to those earning 50 percent of area median income — that’s the county’s public policy,” she says. “Is there a population that is lower than 50 percent of area median income? Absolutely.” (Hudson County’s median household income is just over $40,000.)

Additionally, some of the restrictions that come with using federal money can further complicate housing for people such as the residents of the Palisades community.

“When you are dealing with federal dollars, in order to place them in an appropriate unit for their earnings, they need to document their earnings for you,” Mearns says. “Typically, an undocumented population or intermittent working population, like those living in the Palisades, is best served at the shelters.”

But Maysonet’s world does not converge at the shelter.

Part of the enclave’s charm is its secrecy to the world above. The land is heavily wooded and fenced in by cement retaining walls and metal gates. The descent is treacherously steep. But to those who brave the climb and, more importantly, can wrangle past gatekeepers who protect against intruders — visits are by invitation only — an almost magical world emerges. Tiny homes, some two stories high, some painted bright pinks and blues, are built in the side of the cliff. The trees are adorned with ornaments; art is carved into the barks of the wood.

But what keeps people in the Palisades, more than just its exclusivity, is the rich social network it offers to its inhabitants.

Maysonet’s feelings about the Palisades are complex. In the same breath she longs to leave, but she has undoubtedly grown sentimental about her life here. She feels like a mother to her community, she says. Just outside of her shanty door sits a makeshift kitchen, fueled by firewood, replete with boilerplates and adorned with a vase of fresh flowers. Each night she feeds four other people.

“I make quick stuff, chop meat, rice for everybody — it’s too cold to be cooking out there,” Maysonet says. “I like cooking. When I have my own place, I can do all kinds of meals for myself.”

In return, the others perform chores, like fetching water for drinking and cooking, and gathering wood for fire. One of the men is also her means of protection, keeping away unwanted visitors and volatile drug addicts who convene a ways up the hill. Unfortunately, much of the drug activity that takes place at the Palisades happens within a small segment of the population that has come to misrepresent its other residents, Maysonet says.

In response to growing community opposition to those who make the Palisades their home, Hudson County Police Chief John Bartucci appeared at a recent Washington Park Association meeting to address the situation. Homelessness, it seems, isn’t a local problem, until the homeless become a problem to the locals. Some were concerned about the drug use, others about the fires Palisades residents build to stay warm. The result was a county-sponsored “clean-up” that removed many of the homes along the cliff.

“We didn’t want to create any problems,” Bartucci says. “Rather than have law enforcement people in uniforms speak to these people, Tom Harrigan went and spoke to the people living there.”

Like Kuzas, PERC director Harrigan has developed close relationships with the Palisades residents. He feeds many of them nightly at his shelter’s soup kitchen. He said the clean-up was “very tactful.”

“Carol Ann Wilson [Hudson County director of Health and Human Services] made sure that all of these people were treated well, that none were abused or mistreated,” says Harrigan. “But many of the people living there refuse shelter. They resist a lot of the restrictions.”

Kuzas, however, has mixed feelings about the benefits of clean-ups.

“When you’re making choices like that for the community — people do pay taxes and have a voice — they have a right for that removal,” she says.

While she is mindful of the potential safety risk the homeless can pose to the surrounding neighborhood, Kuzas sees little use in the county-sponsored yearly clean-up, as residents usually return shortly after. She also feels the locals misunderstand the unique outreach–a more patient and circumstance-based kind–the Palisades requires.

“It’s been a long, slow process to get them appointments, to get them resources, to get them social service, to get them Medicaid,” Kuzas says.

There are also plans to rebuild the 14th Street viaduct over the next three years, and construction will begin next year, according to Ward D councilman Bill Gaughan. The city of Hoboken also has plans to create a public park beneath the viaduct. Gaughan says that the homeless community will not be displaced by the construction efforts. But Kuzas fears that once the land becomes a public space, more community members, who don’t understand the complex needs of the Palisades population, will become alarmed. The announcement of the construction project, for her, is the starting gun in a race to secure housing for people such as Maysonet. But in the midst of crises in housing and the economy, it is an uphill battle far steeper than the Palisades themselves.

“[Local elected officials] can help. They can help more. They really can look in the subject,” Maysonet says. “There’s a lot of us out here that really want an apartment and change [in] lifestyle. There’s a lot of them that don’t. What can I say?”

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