Nearly 400 Greyhound buses arrive at the Atlantic City Bus Terminal each week. Bill Southrey, President of the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, says not all passengers are tourists. Many are homeless, bused in by other communities and social service organizations who claim they don’t have the resources to keep them in their own jurisdictions. It’s called Greyhound Therapy. Southery says it’s been a problem in the gaming town for 20 years.
“Fifty-five to 60 percent of the people we serve have some kind of mental health issue and that’s a result of hospitals closing, services not being provided adequately in the communities,” said Southrey
The Atlantic City Rescue Mission is the state’s largest facility for the homeless with 270 beds available each night. They serve over 3,300 homeless and working poor each year. Seventy percent of their funding comes from private donors. The other 30 percent come from grants and state funding. Southrey estimates the majority of the homeless staying at the mission came from other communities.
And according to Southrey, the city’s tourism slogan doesn’t help. “Well, think of the motto. It used to be the world’s biggest playground … Now its “DO AC” — the connotation is come and do what you want to do.”
Just this week, two tourists were murdered across the street from a casino. The suspect is a homeless woman from Philadelphia. Her relative says she’s been living on the streets since January and suffers from schizophrenia. And a day after those fatal attacks, an Atlantic City man was arrested for allegedly slashing a man on the face near the Rescue Mission. All those incidents happened while the gaming town is trying to revitalize its image as a family-friendly, destination resort.
Southrey says about 25 homeless persons typically roam the city’s streets daily … down drastically from previous years.
But Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson disagrees. “The mission has 300 people there on a nightly basis,” he said. “Those people that are not in programs after breakfast they’re let lose onto the city.”
The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) allocated $89,000 in grant money to transfer the homeless to other communities that can assume responsibility for them. The CRDA master plan also includes blocking access to under the boardwalk and lifeguard stands where the homeless typically seek shelter. Those projects are underway. And assemblymen Chris Brown and John Amodeo introduced legislation they think will combat the problem.
In an earlier interview on NJ Today, Amodeo spoke about the effect of the homeless situation on the city’s tourism. “It’s not a benefit for tourists to see individuals that are homeless under the boardwalk hanging out on the beaches and the benches and looking around the dumpsters of the casinos so they can get their meal,” said Amodeo.
But Southrey insists creating a regional facility and ensuring every municipality can provide resources is the real solution to Greyhound Therapy.
Reporting from Atlantic City, Lauren Wanko files this report.
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