LAKEWOOD — When he left his the place where he lives in Lakewood this morning, Charles Bowers didn’t know whether he would be allowed to return.
Bowers lives in a tent in a wooded encampment where he and his 23-year-old son have found a home with about 70 other homeless people.
Today a Superior Court judge in Ocean County — saying the government has a responsibility to provide for the poor — refused to evict Bowers and the other residents from the makeshift camp that township officials claim is a dangerous public nuisance.
"Looks like we’ll live to see another day,’’ said Bowers, an unemployed Tennessee native who has lived in what has been named Tent City for about two months after losing his construction job and his home in Lacey Township.
Since 2006, from 25 to 70 homeless people have been living in the communal setting, eating their meals there and living in tents only a half-mile from the stadium where the Lakewood BlueClaws play minor league baseball.
Lakewood officials want the camp closed, and point to the serious injuries suffered by a handful of its residents from exploding propane tanks and the harsh elements. They say the homeless residents are usurping public property.
"This is purse and simple a seizure of property," said Michael DeCicco, an attorney for Lakewood. "The importance of this decision, this case, I cannot overemphasize because in my view a decision allowing homeless individuals to remain on this property indefinitely ... would eviscerate centuries of Anglo Saxon property law.’’
The Rev. Steve Brigham, who founded Tent City through his Lakewood Outreach Ministry Church, has refused to close the camp, claiming Lakewood and Ocean County do not provide adequate shelter for the homeless.
The county says it provides more than enough resources, all that it can afford, and contends some residents have refused the services offered.
But Jeffrey Wild, an attorney for the Tent City residents, says the county and township’s remedy — paying $100 a night for motel stays — is only a Band-Aid. He says the poor in Ocean County need a shelter and affordable housing.
``We can do better," Wild said outside the courthouse. "We can use the money more efficiently."
Instead of taking immediate action, Judge Joseph Foster said he wanted to hold a hearing to decide whether Lakewood has legal grounds for trying to remove the residents from the wooded area where they live, situated off Cedar Bridge Avenue.
But Foster also said they could not stay there forever.
"What the parties will have to address here is the ultimate remedy," he told a crowd of more than 30 Tent City residents and supporters crammed in his Toms River courtroom. "The parties have agreed here this can’t go on indefinitely."
Brigham, the township and the county reached a tentative agreement last year when the county and township pledged to devote more resources to homeless residents.
At that time he agreed not to build wooden structures and remove others that existed were already there. The agreement came to an abrupt end last winter when residents built wood shanties, which Brigham said were necessary to protect them from the significant snowfall.
Wild said there would probably be no hearing while all sides pursued a resolution through court-ordered mediation.
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