At Cumberland County’s only large-scale homeless shelter, families in need of emergency housing are often separated into two buildings.
Fathers stay in the men’s-only building, while women and children stay in the adjacent building. And, only for a brief periods during lunch and dinner time can they reunite under one roof, said Jill Lombardo-Melchiore, the executive director of Rural Development Corp., the nonprofit that oversees Cumberland Family Shelter.
“But at a certain time dad has to go back to the men’s building, so now mom’s doing showers, preparing kids for school...relatively everything herself,” Lombardo-Melchiore said.
“So they’re not together when they need each other the most and that’s always been heartbreaking for us,” she added.
For the past decade, Cumberland Family Shelter has housed a maximum of 112 people across two buildings, separated by gender due to the communal living setup of the shelters.
This has not only led to families being split up, but has also limited the housing options for single fathers with children, officials said.
Now, with a third shelter that’s set to open next month, the organization will be able to house seven “intact families,” or about 56 more people. Each family will have a private room, allowing them to live together.
A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held on May 17 to unveil the renovated third building, as well as the newly expanded onsite food bank — Southern Regional Food Distribution Center. These buildings, along with the site’s two other homeless shelters, sit on a 117-acre tract of land in Vineland on Mays Landing Road.
Both facilities were able to be renovated to address the growing issues of homelessness and food insecurity in the community, with the help of a a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, officials said.
The new shelter has seven sleeping rooms, each with its own bathroom and mini-kitchen, so that families can have privacy during their temporary stays.
Two of the rooms will be handicapped accessible and the building will also include a computer lab and offices for private meetings.
Once open, families will be moved to the third building, freeing up space in the other two shelters for single men and women.
Food insecurity and demand at the state’s soup kitchens are also increasing, which is why expanding the Southern Regional Food Distribution Center warehouse is also greatly needed by the community, local officials said.
The food distribution center located in Vineland is one of six food banks in New Jersey. It delivers over 1 million pounds of food annually to pantries spanning from as far south as Cape May County to as far north as Mercer County, officials said. The expansion will allow the organization to process more food.
These additions to the site come at a time when the county has observed an increase in the number of people in need of emergency housing and food — despite contrasting figures from state officials who reported the number of unsheltered people in New Jersey decreased by 23% in 2023.
However, at Cumberland Family Shelter, the number of people the facility sees annually has more than doubled since 2021, officials said. And, according to a recent, annual count conducted by Monarch Housing Associates, the homeless population in Cumberland County rose by 33% to 164 people last year.
The demographics of people at the county’s shelter are changing too, Lombardo-Melchiore said. The facility is seeing a lot more families and currently houses 35 children. There has also been an increase in individuals aged 55 and over and many residents are experiencing homelessness for the first time ever.
“A lot of those people just can’t keep up with the cost of living,” Lombardo-Melchiore said. “That’s the fallout of the (COVID-19 eviction) moratorium being over.”
Housing advocates argue the increase in homeless families and children in New Jersey can be attributed to systemic issues, such as a lack of affordable housing, rent increases and the end of the eviction moratorium that provided assistance to struggling renters at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food also often becomes a “flexible expense” when people are faced with rising rent and a decline in affordable housing options, driving the need for soup kitchens and food banks, advocates say.
While Cumberland County does have other smaller transitional shelter facilities and housing assistance programs, Cumberland Family Shelter is the only one of its size and type in the county, officials said.
The expansion will allow the site to have more space to facilitate wraparound services to prevent chronic homelessness, including onsite mental health counseling and social and family services.
“We’re gonna do what we can to prevent homelessness, and if you do find yourself homeless, we’re going to take care of you while you’re homeless,” Lombardo-Melchiore said.
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Nyah Marshall may be reached atNmarshall@njadvancemedia.com.
