APP: Wood burning allowed at Tent City

LAKEWOOD — A Superior Court judge on Friday ordered township officials to stop enforcing an ordinance that bans burning wood outdoors, the only source of heat for the residents of the homeless camp known as Tent City.

Prohibiting Tent City campers from burning wood could cause “substantial irreparable harm to the residents who may not have any available source of heat,” Superior Court Judge Joseph L. Foster said during a court hearing Friday in Toms River, particularly given that temperatures are expected to drop below freezing this weekend.

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Gooding: Superstorm Continues to Displace Thousands From Ocean County

Last week O.C.E.A.N. Inc. President and CEO Ted Gooding said Superstorm Sandy displaced 55,000 Ocean County residents and that anywhere between 20,000 and 25,000 have still not gotten back into their house.

"We know that we had families displaced as far south as Miami, as far west as Cleveland Ohio, as far north as Rhode Island and every town between here and Florida just about we see families from Ocean County," he said.

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Mount Holly settles high-profile housing bias lawsuit

The Associated Press reported Mount Holly officials approved a settlement last week to end a high-profile housing discrimination case, just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court was to hear arguments on it.

The litigation goes back to 2002, when the township supported a redevelopment plan to buy and then raze the modest brick homes in the blighted neighborhood and replace them with new homes, apartments and stores. Residents sued, saying they would not be able to afford to live in the new development.

The case received national attention and was one of the most anticipated on the Supreme Court's docket because it involved the theory of racial disparate impacts. Some residents asserted that the redevelopment was discriminatory because three-fourths of the Mount Holly Gardens residents were minorities.

Read the full story here.

How Food Stamp Cuts Are Hitting Across The U.S.

Stateline, the Daily News Service of the Pew Charitable Trust reports 364,000 NJ children and 195,000 elderly with disabilities will see their benefits cut. Total SNAP cuts in NJ: $90 million.

To view an interactive map with stats from each state, including NJ click here.

Colorado homeless moved to the country for rehab

AlJazeera America reports: Some fear retired Army fort in Great Plains is too isolated, while others see great potential for new state program

FORT LYON, Colo. — Darrell Valdez, Cindy Davis, John Ferentchak and Devonie Williams know what it’s like to live on the streets, to be addicted to alcohol and drugs, to struggle with hopelessness.

Now they’re living far from the city, with about 60 other homeless Coloradans on a sprawling campus of historic buildings near the Arkansas River. In previous incarnations, Fort Lyon was an Army fort, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a veterans’ hospital and a minimum-security prison.


In this latest chapter, these residents — along with state lawmakers, homeless advocates and Bent County officials — hope to put their lives on a different path.

For the complete story click here.

Frontline: Map: Where is Childhood Homelessness Getting Worse?

From Frontline:

The number of homeless students in the United States reached a record high last year, according to new data from the Education Department showing that 1.2 million children had no place to call home.

Click here.

ProPublica: A Year Later, Feds Inch Forward on Fair Housing

Last night's episode of “This American Life”  featured a story based on ProPublica’s yearlong investigation “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law.”

Called “House Rules,” the TAL segment examined the ways zip codes  determine the destiny of many Americans. The show featured some of the actors who go undercover to test the market for hidden housing discrimination, a highly effective tool seldom used by the government.

For links to the reports and video click here.