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.
While the recession has brought us the buzzword of “new homeless,” no one thinks about those already living on the fringe. Like swimmers in a riptide, they are getting sucked back into a cycle of substandard living. Meanwhile traditional lifelines, like housing subsidies, are long gone. The only thing “new” about homelessness, in these times, is how nearly impossible it is to escape.
Just around noon they come to claim their spots, transforming a barren, almost eerie business district into a lively makeshift street market, where vendors greet customers by name. Scents of Indian spices, sizzling tacos and homemade soups suffuse the otherwise cold, briny air howling in from the waterfront. But on any given day, often at the very peak of lunch, a patrol car slinks ominously by.
On July 1, public health activists breathed a sigh of relief as Hyacinth AIDS Foundation launched Jersey City’s first-ever syringe access program. With little fanfare — a flyer pinned to a bulletin board — the Puerto Rican Family Institute, at 40 Journal Square, became the first vendor.
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