For nearly two years now, officials of Atlantic City, the state and Atlantic County have worked persistently and successfully to make city streets cleaner and safer — the dream of stakeholders in the city everywhere. Police, the county prosecutor’s office and service agencies have gotten control of repeat offenses for lesser crimes and tackled the sad convergence of addiction, mental health issues and homelessness.
City Council and the administration of Mayor Marty Small Sr. are determined to build on that momentum to match the experience and image of Atlantic City with its destination resort reality. A key part will be bringing an end to homeless people living under and around its famous Boardwalk.
Early this year a Boardwalk Improvement Group was started by the city, state and Casino Association of New Jersey to make visitors and residents feel safe there. BIG has created for its members a smartphone app called See It, Click It, Fix It so quality-of-life problems can be easily reported and addressed.
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At the same time, the city is sending social workers out daily to engage with those living on the streets. “We hired 10 full-time people and a plethora of trucks and other equipment to give us the tools,” Small said.
The city director of community services, Kenneth Mitchem, said the outreach program found permanent housing for 10 formerly homeless individuals in a two-month period. At the same time, about 7 in 10 people contacted by city workers refused help.
Small said other municipalities continue to bus their neediest people to the city “because we have supreme social services.” He and council members say the state won’t let them relocate those regional services out of the resort’s Tourism District.
Councilman Bruce Weekes has proposed opening another front in the battle against homelessness, addiction and panhandling. A 36-member team would enforce quality-of-life ordinances to eliminate problems such as public drug use, excess noise and loitering. It would be funded by the city and private partners including the casinos, other businesses and even health care providers.
Weekes said council recently made it illegal to panhandle at drive-in windows or gas pumps, but only enforcement will deliver the needed results. “Our house should be clean. Our children deserve to go from Head Start nursery to the library without seeing people shooting up and nodding off,” he said.
These are all worthy ways to combat one of the more intractable problems of modern America. Crucial to the success of any and all of them, however, will be defining offenses to public order to make them subject to enforcement.
To that end, recently City Council unanimously proposed revising the city’s ban on sleeping on city streets and in parks to include the Boardwalk. Just as important, the revised ordinance will prohibit the use of tents and other temporary structures.
In June, Middle Township joined a multiyear trend of U.S. municipalities enacting ordinances against street camping. Other Cape May County towns soon considered doing likewise.
In July, San Diego banned tents and also prioritized ending encampments in parks and near schools first. Encampment bans are common in California, a state with about 170,000 of the nation’s 580,000 homeless. There now are more than 100 such bans by U.S. municipalities, and at least six states have introduced or enacted statewide bans.
Atlantic City later this month must enact its strengthened prohibition of sleeping in public and the structures for doing so. That will firm up the foundation for its expanded efforts to bring homelessness and public drug and alcohol use down to levels common and expected in American resorts that compete with the city.