Kids 10-19 need your help to reinstate Ocean's Harbor House Emergency Youth Crisis Shelter. You can help Youth in need because of family crisis and homelessness. Some are runaways and some were placed by child welfare for temporary placement while they search for permanency. Still others are placed by caregivers, 18/19-year-old youth can place themselves.

Central New Jersey, including Ocean and Monmouth Counties, had only one emergency shelter for minor children. The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) awarded the agency this grant for 3 years at a time. They closed this shelter with a year left of funding available and a history of 35 years receiving it.  The only other Basic Programs in NJ are hours away and it pushes the financial and social responsibility onto other areas which strains service access for everyone. 

Hastily closing a Community Resource after 35 years (with 15 business days warning) when schools are closed - is a recipe for disaster. You can't abandon effective solutions without repercussions. Without services, preventative work, and safe harbor - these youth lose the opportunity for self-growth, reconciliation, or healing. 

Taxpayers will bear the cost of Ocean's Harbor House Shelter closure because it will ripple throughout the community as more youth issues hurt the schools, tent communities hurt businesses, raising delinquency hurts police officers, social workers, and the community at large.

Please, sign this petition to help REOPEN and establish a new Board of Directors and Leadership that restores the agency's 35-year-old mission to help Youth in need.

Thank You for Signing and Sharing!!

 

Keep Reading For More Information...

The Harbor Is On Fire: Its cause, arson

By Tiffany M deSousa

What is Going On

The doors to Ocean’s Harbor House Emergency Youth Shelter on Windsor Avenue in Toms River were locked on Friday, July 28th; although, officially it’s dated the 31st. Alice Woods, Executive Director and the current Board of Directors Members along with Director of Development and Marketing Tim Zeiss announced in a press release dated the 10th, posted on their Facebook page on the 13th, and updated their website to promote the shelter program replacement, a currently unfunded “Family Shelter” program. The justification for this change is a “heightened demand and need in our community for families in need of shelter and support services” (OHH.org, n.d.). Yet, Woods and Zeiss highlighted in January of this year via ‘Shore Time with Vin and Dave’ on 94.3 The Point that they were experiencing an influx in youth presenting with mental health issues (7:35) because of the pandemic and high rates of depression and anxiety amongst adolescents throughout the country.

Who is OHH and Why Do I Care

Ocean’s Harbor House (OHH) is a nonprofit, 501(c)3 charitable organization. Its inception stemmed from local community members and leaders seeking solutions to rising numbers of youth in need of emergency shelter and food. Youth (and their families!) come to the shelter in crisis for varying reasons: family death, dispute, illness, or injury, truancy and delinquency, substance abuse, bullying, suicide and self-injury, mental illness, trauma and PTSD, abusive relationships (including intimate partner violence), human trafficking and child sexual exploitation, homelessness, runaways, and those in need of behavior modification techniques and coping skills. This program addressed an array of social and community problems. It supplied voluntary, free, and confidential comprehensive services that included individual group, and family sessions in a 12-bed, 5-room home. In providing this service, OHH has aided the local communities, strengthened families, and helped create a foundation for self-reflection and growth. Aiding young people and giving them the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to take part in adult society is one of the most crucial but overlooked aspects of serving these youth.

The extent of the shelter's program influence on the community and its fierce history of empowering youth and families is massive – but I will sum best I can. Ocean’s Harbor House Emergency Youth Crisis Shelter takes – took – all qualifying youth ages 10-19, and each individual child comes with their own unique needs and family dynamics. This volunteer-based home had a program to help triage the presenting crisis: individual sessions, family sessions, those not in school participate in daily character education and self-help skills groups, all clients participate in nightly groups, which were also open to the public, including a schedule of Women’s/Men’s Group, Teen Rap Group, Anger Management, and Teens Living Clean, plus the program provided a weekly Parent’s Group. As Zeiss told the ‘Shore Time with Vin and Dave’ 94.3FM audience, the shelter has a “very high percentage of family reunification” (2:33). These separate programs refer to each other as needed (from FCIU to the shelter, from the shelter to TLP), and client referrals come from parents and concerned family members, school guidance counselors, therapists and CMOs, DCP&P caseworkers, Mobile Response, and police departments. Rules within the house helped to facilitate behavior modification and the goal of clients signed in by their family was reunion and referred services. A parent or guardian can “place” a youth into the program so long as they agree to take part and agree to the rules. Sometimes a case is more complicated, and a referral comes from outside the family – a teacher or school guidance counselor, inpatient behavioral health hospital, or Child’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Services (CMRSS; a 24/7 emergency response program 1-877-652-7624) because despite their best efforts at peaceful resolutions, sometimes the youth and parents cannot agree. Sometimes it is late at night, or cold, and all family members are emotionally exhausted but unwilling to stay near each other. Getting space by staying at Ocean’s Harbor House shelter for up to 21 days (more in certain situations) has ensured the safety of thousands of youths and promoted healthier families. All types of families have crossed the threshold: two parents, single parent, divorced, one or two stepparents, adoptive parents, guardians, kinship or foster families, or the Division of Child Protection and Permanency (DCP&P). Some are able to sign themselves into the program – 18-19 year old homeless young adults. Their situations are also varying and created by things like the death of a parent, aging out of the foster care system, leaving an unreported/unsubstantiated abusive living environment, disagreement with parents/guardians, or they moved. Plus all sorts of other complex reasons.

Its Effect and Why You Should Care

A cog missing can implode an entire system. There is nothing else in place to help this age bracket (10-19) in need of mooring. Without informing the community or preparing schools and programs that use agency services, the Board of Directors, Executive Director, and Director of Development and Marketing decided they are best at assessing the needs of our communities’ children. What they’ve decided is they are no longer a priority, barely a consideration.

Inherent to the organization is the recognition that local community problems have solutions and new ways of addressing growing needs can be incorporated into an expanding multiservice nonprofit. Contrary to the agency’s history, these executives chose to burn the Harbor rather than expand it to address new and escalating youth and family issues. This abandonment of its mission and programs is an affront to the community that has supported this agency for 35 years* (almost). It is a betrayal to the youth and families that have relied on these free and confidential services. It is another in a lengthy line of poor choices by this Leadership Team.

The shelter program IS a solution to a major problem in New Jersey and in Ocean County. Its sudden closure comes just before school resumes in September. August is a busy month at the shelter, as school preparations can trigger family crises; September even more so as many referrals come through Toms River Regional School District, but also Southern Regional, Central, Barnegat, Point Pleasant Borough, Brick Township and Memorial, Jackson Memorial, and schools in Monmouth County. The loss of the shelter program will devastate the agency’s ability to reach youth in need.

I hope that this letter to the community reaches the teachers who are fighting the student mental health crisis in our schools post-Covid. I hope it reaches the staff at Mobile Response, DCP&P, County Board of Social Services, and local police departments – none of whom know or are prepared for the ripple effect the loss this program will cause. Our communities face evolving crises and the interventions the shelter program supplies are crucial in managing them. What’s more – it helps prevent them. What will the family homelessness crisis look like a few years from now when these at-risk youth reach the age of having their own children? If having kids is the only way to get shelter, we are not teaching our young people how to become self-sufficient and focus on self-improvement.

Why We’re Here and What Will We Do About It

August 8th should mark the 35th anniversary of Ocean’s Harbor House Emergency Youth Shelter Program doors opening. Communities, schools, teachers, and service providers are just beginning their battle against rising rates of adolescent mental health issues, suicide, and the escalating opioid/fentanyl crisis. Again, this came without warning, planning, or consideration for the varying factors at play and the widespread effect it will have on not just Ocean and Monmouth Counties, but the entire state of New Jersey. So why didn’t the Board and its Leadership Team prepare the public? Why were none of the entwined professionals, organizations, or systems notified? If the Board and its Leadership Team genuinely wished to serve the needs of our communities, then closure of this kind would have been announced and strategically planned with community partners. I question if they want to serve them at all.

For at least 10 years, runaway youth have been denied access to the enshrined safe harbor, a contributing factor to their lowering numbers over the years. When I began working at the shelter, I was told that the law changed – we no longer accepted youth not signed in by a guardian – no more runaways. I went to my supervisors, but they said the law was the law. As a student at Montclair State University Child Advocacy and Policy master’s program, I learned that the law WAS NEVER REMOVED, it was strengthened. After this discovery I notified the shelter program head who corrected the policy, but the damage was already done.

This and other leadership level policy decisions suppressed the eligible shelter population. Upon my return to the agency in the Fall of 2019, I was shocked to find the shelter numbers low and rejection binder full. In 2022, I wrote a letter directly to Woods, Zeiss, and the entire Board about the way they were promoting the agency in fundraising events and concerns about alienating the community. Two weeks later, I was thanked for my feedback. Zeiss told The Point in January that there are still a lot of people who are unaware of the agency and its services. If few know Ocean’s Harbor House exists, they have themselves to blame.

Funding is always an issue. But administrative failures resulted in the loss of the Outreach grant in 2013 and was perhaps the first in a line of preventable problems. It was followed by a revolving door of Executive Directors since 2015 when Sid Colvin retired. Then, Jerome Kilbane, John Piscal, and now Alice Woods. Beginning with Piscal, the Board separated the financial ED responsibilities and created a Program Director position to manage all day-to-day program operations and interactions with youth. These issues require investigative reporting and transparency to the public.

The youth in all of New Jersey have their fate decided by the following companies represented on the Board of Directors for a nonprofit focused on youth and mental health: President of the Board, Cathy Farley represents OceanFirst Bank, as their Vice President & Sr. Wealth Advisor. While Treasurer Elizabeth Reiff represents Lexicon Bank as their Vice President in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area. The immediate past president, Ketti Schoenfeld, is listed as “gemsmith”, as is current member Elaine Schoenfeld, both are Designer & Co-Owner at Gemsith Inc. The secretary, Marie Roselli is manager of JAC Property Management, LLC. Re/Max Revolution is represented by Realtor Associate Kathy Mallette while Terres (Terri) Dimitri, retired Vice President of Global People Services at Covance, is listed as “retired from LabCorp.” Deanna Sperling is the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Barnabas Health Behavioral Health (BHBH) Center and President of RWJBH Behavioral Health. And lastly, Social Services Administrator for Coordinated Family Care of Middlesex County, Jarret Lynn.

*Board member not included: Dr. Teri Kubiel, DNP, NE-BC did not join until June of this year, therefore not responsible for the policy to evict homeless children with two weeks’ notice.

Although it is already cliché to say, but…this really should go viral. They evicted homeless kids with 19** days' notice.

Please donate and share so that we can reopen the Emergency Youth Crisis Shelter Program for at-risk kids and runaways.

Gratefully and Respectfully Yours,

Tiffany M deSousa

2022-2024: Current Graduate Student at Montclair State University Child Advocacy and Policy Program

2019-2020: Pt Residential Counselor at Ocean’s Harbor House Emergency Youth Crisis Shelter

2017-2018: Kinship Foster of 4 special needs children age range 1-9

2013-2018: Stockton University B.A Psychology,  Childhood Studies minor

2014-2015: Ft Residential Counselor at Ocean’s Harbor House Emergency Youth Crisis

2013-2014: Pt Residential Counselor at Ocean’s Harbor House Emergency Youth Crisis Shelter

2010-2013: Ocean County College, A.A.

2001: Runaway Youth under the Federal Runaway Homeless Leave Act,  Ocean's Harbor House Emergency Youth Crisis Shelter Program 

2001-2002: Outreach client, Ocean’s Harbor House

1994: Adopted Youth 

1990: Former Foster Youth (FFY)