By Dari Kotzker
NJ Today
Friendly handshakes and deep conversations about job loss and homelessness. Sen. Barbara Buono toured a tent city in Lakewood Township today. When meeting residents, she had a message for them.
“This is not a campaign stop for me. I want you to know that I care, and I’m not going to worry about running for another election and forget about you,” Buono said.
Buono was referring to Chris Christie’s 2009 campaign stop at a similar tent city in Camden. Buono says as a candidate back then, Christie made empty promises to those people. After winning the election, Christie hasn’t focused on the issues of affordable housing and unemployment.
“When I’m governor, I will be back here. And it’s not just this tent city, this is just an example of so many similar situations that proliferate across our state. So this isn’t something that I’ll turn my back on. This isn’t a promise that will evaporate once I’m governor,” Buono said.
“The gap is continually widening. The cost of living continues to go up but the wages don’t follow. And so the gap of what it takes or gap between what the government helps you out with and what it takes to survive, it just keeps on growing,” said tent city founder Minister Steven Brigham. “In this area, it’s about $24 an hour is what a single individual has to make to afford the basic necessities of life.”
Through the generosity of a church in South Jersey, Camden’s tent city residents were moved to better housing a year later. Buono says with so many others languishing in these homeless encampments, more action needs to be taken with minimum wage and housing. One resident questioned her about job growth in the manufacturing field.
“Are you trying to anything to get interest back into that sector? Because I know a lot of jobs went overseas,” said Bertram Haut.
“The important thing is for people your age, our age to be retrained and to get those skills. And that’s part of my plan to really grow this economy,” Buono said.
After Buono finished speaking to the residents, I asked her what stories really resonated with her and if elected as governor, how would they influence her policies.
“So many people I’ve talked to here today have almost resigned that this is the rest of their life. We need to have affordable housing, we need to have jobs that people can actually afford the cost of living in this state and the focus has not been there,” Buono said.
Currently 100 people call the 15 acres home. There is a consent order for Lakewood Township to find temporary housing for them, but that hasn’t happened yet.