Addicted couple make fresh start

Employment, residence are first steps in new lives

By: Joseph Harvie
   A heroin-addicted couple, who had been living for two months in a treehouse behind a Kendall Park neighborhood, have found employment and a place to live.
   South Brunswick police spokesman Detective James Ryan said that he spoke to the couple recently, and was told they had moved to Maryland, where the man is working for a company that installs security cameras at soda vending machines.
   While staying in the Red Roof Inn on Route 1 and New Road on Nov. 1, the couple, who asked to remain anonymous, met a man who worked installing security cameras, Detective Ryan said. The couple told the man their story, and he offered to give the man work and took the couple to Maryland and gave them a place to stay, Detective Ryan said. From there the couple plans to move to Missouri, Detective Ryan said, and continue working installing the cameras.
   "As far as their drug addiction goes, they have some challenges up ahead," Detective Ryan said. "But at least they are not living on the streets anymore. They have a place to stay indoors, and at least that’s better than living in the woods."
   The couple had lived on the streets for nearly a year after exhausting options with their friends and families. And after having no place to go the couple ran into a group of South Brunswick teens who told them about a treehouse at the end of Ritter Road.
   The couple lived in the treehouse from the end of August until Nov. 1, when the township Public Works Department took it down, because it was built on township-owned property. An anonymous donor put the couple up at the Red Roof Inn.
   The man had spent some time working for Burger King on Route 1 and Major Road, but only lasted two weeks because he didn’t have a place to shower. The manager was worried that the health inspector might issue a citation if he came into the restaurant, the man said.
   The man attended Franklin High School where he said he was a star soccer player, a straight-A student and got a 1290 on his SATs, with a 790 on the math section. He planned to attend Rutgers University in New Brunswick, but those plans were halted when he dropped out of school his senior year because he was addicted to heroin.
   The man warned that heroin was an easy drug to find and was easy to get hooked on.
   He said he would wake up with stomachaches, his bones and joints would ache and it also constipated him. He said that once he stopped using for a few weeks, he got diarrhea that was so bad that he had to go the emergency room.
   The woman warned people to stay away from heroin, because of its highly addictive nature and said people can look at her life, which at 21 years old has her addicted and living on the streets.
   "I never thought my life would come to this, a homeless junkie," the woman said Nov. 1.