TLS Exclusive Deputy Mayor Albert Akerman on Closing of Tent City Lakewood NJ

I am pleased to confirm after nearly a decade that 10 city in Lakewood New Jersey has finally shut down for the past year myself and committe man lonstein have spent endless hours trying to place all the residents that were living there and where we couldn't place them we tried to make other accommodations for them myself committee manstein and the rest of the the the township committee including Mayor Miller have worked endlessly to try to put an end to the situ situation that turned out to be a lot more dangerous than people realized during the time that I was in office as mayor we I had many people who were living in t City that came in to complain to me about the hard conditions in in t City there were constant brawls people who died from fire or overdose and the residents living in ten City the residents living around ten City the entire town and people living in the surrounding towns have constantly complained of trouble that was coming out of there we closed it down in a fashion that that I believe is very admirable we placed everybody in housing and at least temporary housing as of now and we hope to place the rest of the people that are still under Arc here in permanent housing most of the people who are living there are not lakid residents or were not liquid residents there were people from around the country and and some people from out of the country as well we had people living there from the United Arab Emirates Ukraine Czechoslovakia Mexico people who are not even US citizens we try to handle it as best as possible although most towns will typically just just ask the people to leave and arrest those who don't leave when they have a situation with a tent city unfortunately this method of handling the homeless is not sustainable for a town the size of Lakewood homelessness is a federal issue and although we will no no longer continue to place people we will still keep our other efforts for homelessness prevention open we have organizations that that help the homeless and we will continue to fund them and we will continue to reach out to the county freeholders who have always been helpful in dealing with homelessness prevention at this point I'd like to thank committee manstein for being the driving force behind shutting down ten City and Mayor Miller for keeping myself and Committee manstein in charge of the effort to shut down 10 city and I'd like to thank the rest of the committee for their constant support and the county freeholders Mike mcneel steps Chief Lawson of Lakewood Police Department and the entire police department for that matter the entire Public Works and their leaders Al bur and tonyi and all the other organizations and pastors and rabis and everybody else who was involved in this effort in in shutting down 10 City