Published November 13, 2012
By Susan K. Livio/Statehouse Bureau

ATLANTIC CITY — Every day, for the past two weeks, 6-year-old Angel Arroyo-Ortiz has asked his mother why they can’t go home.

And every day — sometimes twice a day if he’s feeling especially anxious — Sandra Arroyo-Ortiz, 21, has had to explain to her son that their home is "damaged," but is being fixed. They need to stay at the motel — their fourth since Sandy struck — a little longer, she says.

The home Angel and his mom are pining for is Covenant House’s crisis shelter in Atlantic City.

"We’ve been at Covenant House for five, going on six months now. We were just finding a little stability," said Arroyo-Ortiz, a former foster child. "It’s been hard for him. He doesn’t like rain, thunderstorms and lightning and this scared him a lot. He keeps asking, ‘when can we go back to the house?’"

Sunday, all 32 homeless adults and their children who live at Covenant House were back home. They’ll be limited to the second and third floors of the 13,000-square-foot Atlantic Avenue facility while construction crews work on the first floor, which was flooded with sand and ocean water.

Hurricane Sandy disrupted the lives of millions of New Jerseyans and rendered thousands of residents temporarily homeless. But the storm’s aftermath has also intensified New Jersey’s persistent affordable housing shortage.

For teens and young adults "who didn’t have the stability of a home, it has unnerved them," said Brian Nelson, director of Covenant House’s South Jersey Programs.

Crisis counselors have been brought in to help them cope, Nelson said.

"They’ve been on the road for 11 days now. They’ve experienced such trauma in their lives already, it’s hard for them to get kicked out of their home," Jill Rottman, executive director of Covenant House New Jersey, said.
Covenant House’s outreach teams in Asbury Park, Jersey City and Newark also found more than 50 homeless kids who "were only marginally sheltered before the storm," Rottman said. In many cases, they had been sleeping on couches at friends’ homes but power outages forced them to move, she said. Those who wanted to stay at the crisis shelter in Newark have been admitted.

Because of the damage caused by Sandy, Covenant House has not been able to accept new people into its shelter, Nelson said.

"Especially in the shore area, there was already a real lack of housing that was affordable" said Arnold Cohen, policy coordinator for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey. Communities like Long Branch have turned many rental properties into high-end condo developments.

The storm "put further stress on that small supply," he said.

During the off-season, shore motels often rent to low-income clientele, but Cohen predicted that this year, "they will be taken up by upper-income families" displaced by the storm.

One of his colleagues, a mom with three kids, was flooded out in Keansburg. FEMA gave her a housing voucher and suggested she look for a place to live in Atlantic City, Cohen said.

"It’s insane, but where else can you find something you can afford?" he said.

Arroyo-Ortiz, who grew up in the Atlantic City-Pleasantville area, turned to Covenant House after living arrangements with friends and a relative fell apart. A police officer who responded to a call she made to break up an "altercation" suggested she go to the shelter.

"It was hard for me to adjust. I wasn’t just moving in with a friend — I was moving in with twenty-something young people," Arroyo-Ortiz said. "Anybody can get kicked out at any point in time" if they break the rules. "I have seen over 50 people move in and get kicked out."

She just turned 21 last month, and said she hopes she is living on her own before her next birthday. She works part-time at a clothing store, a job she landed with Covenant House’s help, and is looking for full-time work so she can save money faster. She plans to go to college to study nursing, or business, or early childhood education — or maybe all three.

The storm has interfered with her plans. She hasn’t worked and her son has missed a lot of school.

"I’m ready to go," she said of leaving the Blackhorse Pike motel she lived in most of last week. "I want to go where I am comfortable."