All posts by Jared Kofsky

Jared Kofsky served The Streetlight from August 2016 to December 2019 as the Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief.

Shelter For People Experiencing Homelessness In The Works For Trenton’s West Ward

The new owner of a property in Trenton’s West Ward could allow the premises be used by people experiencing homelessness once again.

A legal notice shows that a firm known as SLM Trenton, LLC filed a use variance application with the Trenton Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) that calls for turning the three-story building at 1212 Edgewood Avenue into a “Class I or II license homeless shelter.” Class I shelters can operate all day and night, according to the notice, whereas class II shelters may only be open at night.

Property records indicate that SLM Trenton, LLC is registered out of a building in the central business district of Mount Holly, Burlington County and that the firm paid $120,000 for 1212 Edgewood Avenue. It is not yet clear what company or organization is behind the LLC, nor is it known how many people would be able to reside at the shelter.

The 40,419 square foot property was once used as a shelter for women, according to the notice, but currently sits vacant. Located adjacent to the Delaware and Raritan Canal opposite Cadwalader Park, 1212 Edgewood Avenue was the site of the Florence Crittenton Christian Refuge Association beginning in 1897, according to the Trenton Historical Society. State records show that Edison Prep Residential Community Home later utilized the site.

The ZBA is scheduled to hear the application by SLM Trenton, LLC on Wednesday, December 18 at 7:00pm at City Hall on East State Street.

College Opens Innovative Food Pantry in Ewing Township

Editor’s Note: Last winter, The Streetlight reported that a food pantry was in the works for The College of New Jersey. In the time since, the facility has opened its doors.

By Hannah Keyes and Brie Wells

The SHOP @ TCNJ is not the typical shopping destination for most college students, but for many, it provides resources needed to get through the week.

Located at The College of New Jersey’s (TCNJ) Campus Town in Ewing Township, The SHOP is a food pantry that provides resources to those who may be experiencing food insecurity. The SHOP offers many different resources such as canned goods, hygiene products, some clothing items, microwavable meals, bottled water, feminine care products, fruits, grains, and vegetables. The SHOP also offers vegetarian and gluten free products for those who may have other dietary concerns.

It is open not only to college students, but also to faculty and general community members who may be in need. There are no questions asked.

Alana Adams, the College Enhancement Intern for The SHOP, mentioned that “food insecurity impacts nearly 40% of college students nationwide, so there should be no shame associated with utilizing the resources your campus or community provides.”

However, there is often a negative preconceived notion surrounding the use of a food pantry and seeking help.

“We don’t know what you’re going through, but we are here to support you in the best way that we can. We want to have an experience with you. We want to provide a welcoming, comforting, inclusive, and safe environment where you are seen as a person,” emphasized AmeriCorps member and TCNJ Garden and Food Security program assistant Horacio Hernandez.

TCNJ students in Mercer County are the catalysts that brought light to the situation that many members of the community face everyday. The inception of The SHOP began when concerned students asked for referrals or file requests to provide emergency aid to those struggling to eat constantly or to find adequate housing. This need became especially apparent during extended school breaks.

“TCNJ has a Student Emergency Fund, which students can apply and receive limited funding for temporary housing or food. With the help of other organizations, the Dean of Students Office launched the SHOP in February 2019, which serves as a more long-term solution to students in need, where they can receive food and other supplies on a weekly basis,” Adams added.

The building space that The SHOP occupies was offered by the chief of TCNJ’s Campus Police and allowed for everything to officially get started.

In order to support the surrounding communities, The SHOP works in conjunction with Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, TCNJ Student and Academic Affairs, and TCNJ Campus Police. According to the Program Associate of the Adult Hunger Programs at Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, Pamela Sims Jones, “The Food Bank is here to support The SHOP with non-perishable and perishable commodities as needed so that The SHOP can continue to support the TCNJ community members who may be food insecure.”

With the aid of Mercer Street Friends Food Bank and the rest of their partners, The SHOP hopes to be able to provide resources to those who do not have access to food and to help end the stigma surrounding asking for help. In the future The SHOP not only wants to provide basic necessities but to also give additional support for various aspects of life.

Donations and offered help are always accepted and valued by The SHOP. Recently there was a Greek Life food drive competition to see which Greek organization could donate the most food to The SHOP.

There are many additions that The SHOP hopes to add services as time goes on, such as extra training for staff members, more partnerships with other organizations, the ability to provide hot meals, and the list goes on. The SHOP has a lot in store for the future.

Here to Help: Mercer Street Friends

By Hannah Keyes

The Mercer Street Friends Food Bank for Nutritional Health and Wellness is one of six food banks in the state of New Jersey. Established in 1987, the Food Bank secures and distributes food and provides related nutrition assistance to help ensure that citizens do not go hungry.

According to the Program Associate of Adult Hunger, Pamela Sims Jones, The Food Bank distributes USDA, state-purchased, and donated commodities to 48 member agencies within Mercer County. The 21 mobile pantry sites receive donated perishable and non- perishable items, and the 13 senior citizen housing sites receive designated USDA non-perishable commodities for the 520 Commodity Supplemental Food Program participants. Mercer Street Friends member agencies include a network of pantries, shelters, youth programs and the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) and their sites.

“Mercer Street Friends is 61 years old and the Food Bank is 31 years old. With a staff of 9 and over 2,400 volunteers a year, the Food Bank distributes more than 4 million pounds of food a year,” stated Sims Jones.

Within this food distribution, the Food Bank has multiple programs seeking to help reduce hunger, such as “Send Hunger Packing,” a program that partners with local public schools and provides healthy kid-friendly food on Fridays for children who are at-risk for suffering from hunger so they can have meals to eat over the weekend. The Food Bank also provides breakfast and lunch for children facing meal gaps during the summer when they cannot get food from school. Additionally, there is a mobile pantry that delivers monthly meal boxes to around 200 low-income seniors.

New Jersey to Launch Office on Homelessness Prevention

By Jared Kofsky

As chronic homelessness continues to impact thousands of New Jerseyans in municipalities such as Trenton, the question remains what roles government agencies, non-profit organizations, religious groups, and for-profit entities should play in alleviating this crisis. Although the City of Trenton operates the Coordinated Entry and Assessment Services (CEAS) Center and county, state, and federal dollars often fund contracted services at local organizations, the majority of resources serving people experiencing homelessness in Mercer County are ultimately operated by charities such as Anchor House and the Rescue Mission of Trenton.

Now, could changes be coming to how homelessness is addressed on a statewide level?

The Streetlight has learned that the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) will be moving forward with the development of a new Office on Homelessness Prevention and that the office will be based in the William Ashby Building in Downtown Trenton. Tammori Petty, the Director of Communications for DCA, confirmed to The Streetlight that the office will coordinate between government agencies and external organizations serving people who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk.

“The office, which will focus on addressing homelessness among all subpopulations, including youth homelessness, has been tasked with implementing a statewide strategy to address homelessness,” Petty explained. “A major part of the Office’s role will be to engage stakeholders across the state, including people with lived experience of homelessness, throughout the development of the state plan.”

At first, according to Petty, there will be three staff members in the office, including a director, a program manager, and a data manager.

Employment postings issued by the State of New Jersey and viewed by The Streetlight show that the director is expected to be paid between $95,000 and $100,000 annually. The individual will lead the collaborative efforts, analyze data, make recommendations regarding the statewide plan, and serve as an “expert resource on homelessness.”

The program manager would administer contracts with local organizations while earning between $70,000 and $85,000, while the data director would make between $75,000 and $90,000 and would issue reports about homelessness in New Jersey.

Applications for all three positions were due to DCA on October 15.

The establishment of the Office on Homelessness Prevention, along with the upcoming New Jersey Homelessness Prevention Task Force that acts as an advisory board for the office, came after legislation was enacted in April that involved appropriating $3 million to the DCA.

Anchor House Receives Approval for Brunswick Avenue Facility

By Jared Kofsky

A non-profit serving youth and young adults experiencing homelessness could soon be expanding its presence in Trenton’s North Ward.

Anchor House, Inc. received approval on July 17 from the Trenton Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) in connection with its proposal for the premises at 868 Brunswick Avenue. The organization sought a use variance in order to turn the house at the site into “office space on the first floor and residential use on the upper floors for up to four individuals,” according to a legal notice.

The facility would include four bedrooms, a common kitchen, and a living area, the notice stated. All of the residents of the house are expected to be between 18 and 21.

Anchor House already operates a shelter for youth and the Anchorage Transitional Living Program for young adults. The non-profit also facilitates the Anchor Link and Anchor Line spaces at the corner of South Broad and Beatty Streets in Chambersburg.

The ZBA’s decision was memorialized in September, according to the notice. for the proposed adaptive reuse of the building is not yet clear. No updates from Anchor House, Inc. regarding the project were available by publication time.

Scott: Being a First-Generation High School and College Graduate

By Essence B. Scott

If not for my parents’ honesty about their education, I would not have graduated from high school or college. Their honesty gave me the courage to remain in school, even as mental health issues burst my world open. I knew that I could not quit, knew I had to double down. I had to make an effort to graduate from high school.

The room we were in, Room 24 at the Trails End Motel in Windsor, affectionately called “The Trailey” by my Ma even today, further influenced my need to attain my high school diploma and Associates in Arts in Liberal Arts from Mercer County Community College. I knew I did not want to be homeless, in a motel room year after year, with the prices going up. I knew that I wanted and needed a place of my own. I knew education— attending school— doing my best on my schoolwork—would be my key. I knew I never wanted to live in another motel room for the rest of my life, and definitely not with children in tow.

The transition period from high school to college was not without its struggle. Though smart, I was underprepared for the more intense coursework–the readings from several different courses, the papers to write, the Math homework that will not do itself. I ultimately stopped. I tried taking five and six courses at a time and burned out of all of them. I learned that just because my peers were taking five and six courses a semester doesn’t mean I should.

Asking for help was something that I found embarrassing. I had always been an independent type, and sometimes asking for help made me feel badly. I was supposed to grasp this information. I was supposed to be able to do this on my own, no assistance, no help.

I really do wish I had waited a couple of years after high school before applying to college. I would have been better off for it.

Ultimately, being the first to graduate makes me ecstatic. I did this. I pulled it off—name correctly spelled and (my full first, middle, and last names on my high school diploma, my first name, middle initial, and last name), pronounced correctly.

To other first-generation college students, to the parents who return to school years later, older, wiser, maybe even with children, I say congratulations and I wish you all the best and more. I say to read up on and learn your rights and responsibilities. I would say to find out more about college preparation programs. Lastly, I would say that if we do not feel comfortable about college straight after high school, then it is okay not to go to college. Maybe we’ll learn a little more about ourselves, gain more confidence. Consider going to trade school. The possibilities are endless.

Essence B. Scott is a longtime community contributor to The Streetlight who experienced homelessness in Mercer County as a child. A native of the capital region, Scott now resides in North Carolina.

Trenton Housing Authority Closes Waiting Lists

The line for public housing in New Jersey’s capital city has gotten so long that the Trenton Housing Authority has decided not to allow anyone else to join the waiting list.

City Hall in Trenton. File photo by Jared Kofsky/The Streetlight.

By Jared Kofsky

Trentonians seeking to reside in public housing this summer are out of luck for the time being. The Trenton Housing Authority (THA), which owns and operates the public housing projects throughout New Jersey’s capital city, is no longer accepting applications for most of its affordable apartments and houses.

In a February legal notice, the THA announced that over 6,000 households were on the waiting lists for public housing in Mercer County’s second largest municipality. Federal census records show that Trenton has a total of roughly 27,000 households. Citing the “high volume of applicants,” the authority revealed that it would be closing its “Family” and “Senior/Disabled” waiting lists on March 1.

As planned, the THA stopped permitting new applications to both of these waiting lists at the beginning of March, according to its website. Trentonians interested in residing in public housing in the city who visit the THA’s Apply4Housing web page are now greeted with a message stating in part that “we are sorry, but there are no open list [sic] currently.”

Based in the North Trenton neighborhood, the THA has almost a dozen complexes in Trenton. These facilities range from the 112-unit Samuel Haverstick Homes near the Ewing Township border to the 376-unit Mayor Donnelly Homes on New Willow Street to the Lincoln Homes near Rivera Community Middle School.

Trenton, Princeton, and Hightstown are the only municipalities in Mercer County to operate their own public housing authorities, though the Princeton Housing Authority maintains a total of just 236 apartments while the Hightstown Housing Authority has just 100. When applications for the waiting list are open, the THA’s website states in part that the capital city’s authority requires at least one household member to be an American citizen or “eligible non-citizen” and that applicants must not exceed the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s income limits. For a family of four, annual “low income” is defined as a household earning a maximum of $71,900 while “extremely low income” is considered to be less than $29,650.

The Streetlight has learned that Trenton is far from the only city in New Jersey where there is a far higher demand for public housing than a supply of affordable units.

60 miles northeast of Trenton in the state’s second largest city, the Jersey City Housing Authority (JCHA) has closed both the application list for the Section 8 Housing Assistance Payment Program, which “is designed to assist eligible low-income families pay their rent,” along with all but one of its “public housing site based waiting lists,” according to the agency’s website.

During the summer of 2018, the JCHA decided to reopen its public housing waiting list to applicants, but only for a one week period. However, a statement from the agency at the time mentioned that not all people who sought to be added to the waiting list would be included since “a set number of preliminary applications [would] be selected using a computerized random selection process.” The sole remaining waiting list in Jersey City that remains open is solely for two-member households where one family member must be 62 years of age or older, according to municipal records. The draft of the JCHA’s 2019 annual plan shows that as of August 2018, there were still 5,564 applicants on the waiting lists.

Meanwhile, the Newark Housing Authority (NHA) had waiting lists with an estimated 19,494 applicants, roughly the entire population of Hopewell Township, as of December 2018, according to the 2018 NHA Annual Report. The NHA, which is the largest agency of its kind in the Garden State, reported that 800 individuals were moved from the waiting lists to public housing in 2018. However, the NHA website shows that 13,303 families and 3,897 disabled applicants are still waiting and only “near elderly, elderly, and disabled residents” are currently allowed to submit applications.

While the public housing waiting lists might not be open at the THA, the JCHA, and the NHA, there are a variety of resources available in the capital region for readers experiencing homelessness to visit. The Mercer County Resource Guide on pages six and seven provides additional information regarding these services.

 

Editor’s Note: This story was written in March 2019.

Extreme Weather Continues to Plague Trenton Library

By Jared Kofsky

With temperatures in the capital region this summer reaching as high as 96 degrees, Mercer County residents sought shelter indoors during the day from the excruciating heat. In local suburbs, if residents lacked air conditioning on some of the warmest days of the year, local libraries were places to spend the day indoors. In fact, the New Jersey 2-1-1 Partnership recommends that “libraries… and other public air-conditioned spaces are good alternatives in every county if you are looking for a place to cool down.”

However, for residents of Trenton, particularly those experiencing homelessness, such an option did not exist on days when temperatures were at their highest. The Trenton Free Public Library (TFPL) on Academy Street, part of which was built in 1902, was shut down frequently, with closures coinciding with high temperatures.

An analysis by The Streetlight of online announcements by the TFPL found that the library was closed on 12 days during this summer alone due to concerns over heat in the building. On 12 additional days, the TFPL closed early, meaning that for nearly an entire month’s worth of days, the municipal library in New Jersey’s capital was either shut down for all or part of its usual hours of operation.

Patrons who sought the library’s services during the day were often greeted with a sign reading “the library is subject to close at any time during the day due to the temperature within the building.” On Facebook, there were regular posts this summer warning potential visitors that the library will be shut down for the day “due to the excessive heat and humidity in the building.” Although posts on July 25 and 26 and on August 1, 3, 4, 6, and 9 mentioned that “HVAC engineers are on-site working on this issue,” there were closures on excessively hot days throughout the summer, from the end of June until the beginning of September.

Following these shutdowns, it appeared as though an end to the weather-related closures was near, with the TFPL posting online at the end of the summer that a new HVAC system was installed, replacing a previous system that was set up over four decades earlier. The library also thanked the Trenton City Council for assisting with funding the new system.

Yet, just a few months later, extreme weather impacted the TFPL again. On three frigid days before this winter even began, the building was closed to the public due to concerns over the climate control system on the premises.

The Streetlight took the concerns over the closures to Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, who stated in an exclusive interview in late November that the problem was being addressed.

“We’ve actually been working on the HVAC system and we are making facility upgrades to the library,” said Gusciora. When asked what was causing the delay, the mayor cited “contractor challenges” and added that secondary fixes are on the way.

“We hope to correct any problems with the library facility in the very near future,” he explained.

The capital is far from the only city in the United States where residents experiencing homelessness rely on libraries for services and shelter during the day. A Washington Post investigation described libraries as the “front line of America’s homelessness crisis,” highlighting San Francisco, Denver, and Philadelphia as examples of municipal libraries that are hiring their own social workers for individuals experiencing homelessness.

In Trenton, while there are a handful of other resources that are open to Trentonians experiencing homelessness, such as the Rescue Mission of Trenton’s Day Center. This facility, which is open daily, serves lunch and offers case management services. However, the TFPL remains a common place for individuals to spend the day safely indoors when it is open.

Unlike other similarly-sized cities in New Jersey, Trenton currently has only one municipal library branch. Although the TFPL used to operate the Briggs, Cadwalader, East Trenton, and Skelton Branches in four of the city’s outer neighborhoods, all four were closed in 2010.

According to Mayor Gusciora, City Hall is figuring out how those libraries can be reopened. When asked for additional details, the mayor stated that the City would require non-profit partners to operate each of the old library branches, such as how Howard’s Healthy Choices is operating in the former Briggs Branch Library.

Facility upgrades are needed, Gusciora explained, mentioning that the City is in discussions with Mercer County officials about possibly having Trenton become involved with the Mercer County Library system.

Still, nearly a decade after the branches were shuttered, when it comes to the TFPL, finances remain a concern.

“The library budget used to be $8 million. It’s down to $2 million so you can readily understand why the branches had to close,” Gusciora told The Streetlight. “The City can’t afford to do it all.”

The Highlight: Trenton Mayor W. Reed Gusciora

For the last several months, New Jersey’s capital has been under new leadership. W. Reed Gusciora, a former state assemblyman and adjunct professor at The College of New Jersey, was sworn into office as Trenton’s 56th mayor in July. With the 2018 Point-in-Time Count finding that overall homelessness has increased in New Jersey, The Streetlight wanted to know how Gusciora is planning to address the issue on the local level. Here is a preview of Managing Editor Jared Kofsky’s Q+A with the mayor, which was conducted in late November.

The Streetlight: Why do you think Trenton has such a significant population of people experiencing homelessness? What do you think the cause [of homelessness] might be on the local level?

Gusciora: On the local level, a lot of it is mental health and addiction services are needed. The other thing is that we’re such a transient town. We have four train lines, people can walk across the bridge from Morrisville, and because it’s the capital, they feel that they can get the most assistance here. We have a lot of churches that offer food assistance [and] we have the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, so there are a lot of outlets that the homeless population can take advantage of.

The Streetlight: The Rescue Mission is the only general population emergency shelter in Mercer County. With Newark adding seven shelters, are there plans to open a city-run shelter in Trenton?

Gusciora: We can look at that but we’re focusing on transitioning to more permanent housing. I don’t think just offering more temporary shelters is necessarily the answer.

The Streetlight: What projects are you envisioning as part of an increase in transitional housing?

Gusciora: The Rescue Mission has a good model where they have rooms for temporary shelter but then they have a long-term temporary shelter where [people experiencing homelessness] have actual rooms assigned to them and they actually have apartments that they can stabilize long term until [clients experiencing homelessness] are able to get off on their feet. The Rescue Mission is not strictly temporary overnight housing and that’s something that we have to look for rather than just offering temporary shelters. The other thing is that we are the state capital so we need the state and the county to be very much a partner because if you look at the other communities that surround us, they offer very few homelessness services and they really need to step up to the plate so that everyone doesn’t just get funneled into the capital city.

The Streetlight: If you could have it your way as mayor, what would that look like to have other communities step up to the plate?

Gusciora: I think that they should have an obligation to offer some kind of temporary housing and bring the services to them directly, whether it be mental health or addiction services, rather than just give somebody bus fare to the capital city. I don’t think that really is responsive.

The Streetlight: Is there any plan specifically for increasing services addressing youth homelessness such as or in addition to Anchor House?

Gusciora: Well there’s other organizations such as LifeTies. A big consequence of homelessness are LGBT youth that seem to be tossed out of their family’s structure and as society gets more tolerant, that will be less of a problem but nonetheless, it’s critical to offer those services as well but there are other organizations that are willing to step up to the plate such as LifeTies.

The Streetlight: Do you think then that homelessness should be addressed by non-profits or should the city government play more of a role?

Gusciora: Well the problem is that the City doesn’t have the resources to handle the problem itself so it does have to rely on faith-based initiatives as well as general non-profits. If the State of New Jersey paid dollar-for-dollar in their property taxes because of all the tax-exempt properties that they occupy, they would give the City $45 million, but yet last year, we got $9 million in transitional aid, so we can’t keep going back to our own tax base to pay for such programs so we really need for the state and the county and even the feds to step up to the plate.

Selected questions and answers have been slightly condensed for spacing purposes.

Care Available for Pregnant Women Experiencing Homelessness

By Hannah Keyes

The Catholic Charities Diocese of Trenton facility on North Warren Street in Downtown Trenton. Photo by Jared Kofsky/The Streetlight.

The opioid epidemic has been reaching astronomical levels, as it has been categorized as one of the worst drug crises in the United States to date. According to the Trenton Health Team, a collaborative program that addresses health care in Trenton, “New Jersey continues to be a national leader when it comes to opioid addiction – both in the scope of the impact on the state, and in the public and private response to the disease. More than 1,600 state residents died of opioid related issues in 2016.”

Within this population of drug addicted individuals, pregnant women have not received much attention or care due to a lack of coordination between maternal health and addiction medicine. However, there are now programs that are desperately trying to fight this.

In January 2018, Capital Health, Catholic Charities Diocese of Trenton (CCDoT), the Trenton Health Team, the Rescue Mission of Trenton, Henry J. Austin Health Center, and HomeFront introduced a new program called For My Baby and Me (FMBM) that focuses on addressing the needs of addicted pregnant women who are homeless or at risk for homelessness.

The women who are enrolled in FMBM receive plenty of care throughout their stay. Clients receive medical care through all stages of pregnancy, birth and postpartum, medication-assisted addiction treatment, peer recovery and relapse prevention counseling and support, mental health services, housing assistance, transportation, employment services, basic needs such as food and clothing, and child care for dependents. Susan Lougherty, the Director of Operations for CCDoT, mentioned that the program is open to anyone, regardless of their insurance status and operates all twenty-four hours of the day.

After receiving a two-year $4 million grant, CCDoT was able to expand its Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) program in underrepresented areas of Mercer and Burlington Counties. With this significant funding, the agency plans to extend its outreach to those who need it the most, specifically certain populations of people who have repeatedly been denied the help that they need. Not enough recovery programs accept pregnant women due to the complex and specialized care that they require, which can lead to women becoming fearful and unwilling to seek help.

While there are similar programs such as Mother Child in Camden County that assists pregnant women experiencing homelessness, FMBM is unique in its approach since it explicitly aims to help pregnant women overcome their drug addiction in order to become healthy for both themselves and their babies.

FMBM uses a holistic partner approach that allows pregnant women to get the best treatment possible. For example, HomeFront provides shelter and housing, CCDoT provides substance abuse treatment and has the lead on case management, and Rescue Mission answers the 24/7 hotline and provides peer support. Different services are provided by different partners, which makes it a collective effort for a common cause.

“The program [FMBM] is able to achieve results through the holistic partner approach. Each community partner brings strength to this model through their expertise in their specific area and their ability to rapidly scale to meet the individualized needs of all of those we are serving through this system,” Lougherty stated.

FMBM began as a collaboration of healthcare and social service providers in the Trenton area. Doctors at Capital Health recognized that the attention and treatment of the population of pregnant women was being lost. FMBM was able to provide support to Capital Health in their initiative to reduce instances of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). The efforts on both ends have produced positive impacts on many pregnant women’s lives.

To date, there have been nearly 40 pregnant women who have gone through the program, including Sabrina who was able to quit her addictive drug habits and give birth to a healthy child.

“I totally hit rock bottom before I came here. I was really scared once I found out I was pregnant again, especially since I found out so late,” Sabrina explained.

She discovered that she was having a baby 23 weeks into her pregnancy. Before coming to FMBM, she stated that she experienced a lot of judgment from nurses and doctors at some hospitals. However, Sabrina was referred to FMBM and although she was at first skeptical due to it being so different from a generic rehab center, she believes it has saved her life.

“My quality of life has improved tremendously. The program is just great. The nurses here are awesome and very supportive. Without everyone’s support here and my family, I couldn’t have done all of this,” stated Sabrina.

The women who go through the program have to work extremely hard to recover. At FMBM they receive a tremendous amount of support to help get them to a healthy state of mind and being.

In regards to the women who have successfully completed the program, nursing supervisor at CCDoT for FMBM, Lisa Merritt mentioned that “it’s definitely really rewarding for all of the treatment team because we want to set them up for success so that they can sustain the home that we put them in, or the job that they get at the end of the treatment here. You see them slowly grow, even in their appearance one month later, three months later, six months later. Everything improves: appearance, health, and motivation.”


For My Baby and Me

(609) 256-7801

Staff Available 24/7