Hotel offers temporary shelter for Tent City homeless
By George Mast, Courier-Post
An enclave of homeless from Camden's Tent City will now spend summer in a Cherry Hill hotel.
A plan to temporarily house nearly 50 men and women in a church facility in Cumberland County was scrapped late last week after officials there raised concerns. Owners of the Inn at Cherry Hill then stepped forward and offered rooms through August, according to Amir Khan, the pastor who orchestrated the exodus from Tent City last week.
"When one door shuts, there is always a bigger and better door open down the road," said Khan, pastor of Clementon's Solid Rock Worship Center and founder of the faith-based nonprofit Nehemiah Group.
Having recently pulled together $250,000 in donations, Khan escorted the 49 Tent City residents from their wooded encampment near a Route 676 exit ramp in Camden last Thursday to the Wingate by Wyndham Hotel in Mount Laurel. After a day of pampering, the group was supposed to be bused to the Crusaders for Christ Evangelistic Ministries facility in Fairfield, near Bridgeton.
After a three-week stay at the church facility, the homeless men and women were to be put up in apartments across South Jersey. However, Khan said the move to Fairfield was nixed after Cumberland County and Bridgeton officials raised concerns about "Camden's problems coming down to Cumberland."
Cumberland County Freeholder-Director Louis Magazzu said Tuesday the concerns were "primarily a zoning issue."
After an extended stay at the Wyndham, Khan moved the residents to the Cherry Hill hotel Monday. While disappointed with the response in Cumberland County, he said things now appear to be working out for the best.
"For whatever reason they chose to react the way they did, but that opened a better door for us," he added.
Dan Keashen, spokesman for Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt, said there are no township codes preventing the residents from staying at a hotel here. He said Platt was aware of the men and women coming to Cherry Hill and had instructed the representatives from the police department to meet with service providers there.
At the Cherry Hill hotel Tuesday, seven of the residents -- refreshed and re-energized -- were welcomed back from a weekend of drug detox. There were whoops, hearty handshakes and hugs.
Friends needled each other about recently expanded waistlines and praised their new home.
"Anything is possible when you have new life," Lorenzo "Jamaica" Banks, Tent City's unofficial "mayor," told fellow residents during the celebration inside a conference room at the hotel.
"You can do anything you set your mind to -- they did."
Banks told the group that from here on out, they are no longer Tent City residents but instead are "new life" residents.
Micah Khan, Amir Khan's son and COO of the Nehemiah Group, said the seven men and women who went through detox will continue receiving treatment at the hotel. Eight others with addictions are receiving methadone treatments.
However, two residents with drug addictions returned to Camden, deciding they didn't want to receive treatment, Micah Khan said.
Jessica Kron, one of those who went through detox, said she is free of drugs for the first time in more than a year. She had been living at Tent City on and off for two years.
"It feels good," she said Tuesday. "I'm just thankful they have the faith in us to do this."
Earlier on Tuesday, a half dozen of the residents were busy cleaning a winter's worth of dirt from concrete walkways around two empty pools in a hotel courtyard.
"They have given so much to us, it's only fair that we give back," said Marvin Tomlinson, a resident of Tent City since it originated five years ago.
Starting today, the residents will go to three classes daily at the hotel, Amir Khan said. Classes range from spirituality to job readiness. Social service agencies will be involved in assisting the residents, he added. After August, Khan hopes to place the men and women in permanent housing.
Micah Khan said one of the men who has a CDL permit will soon be put to work driving a moving truck. One female resident is planning to enroll at Camden County College.
On Tuesday after the residents returned from detox, Micah Khan handed them keys to their hotel rooms.
"This is your home," he said. "Get settled in."
Reach George Mast at (856) 486-2465 at gmast@camden.gannett.com