By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
It has been 25 years, but Connie Mercer remembers it as if it were yesterday — preparing a traditional Thanksgiving meal and taking the food, packed in Styrofoam containers, to the motels on Brunswick Pike that housed the homeless.
“Helen Holmes and JoAnn Adams and I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner,” Ms. Mercer said. “We took the food and knocked on the doors at the motels. People were not expecting it. It wasn’t the food, it was that they were not forgotten. It was an incredibly warm, lovely experience.”
And that’s how HomeFront got its start, Ms. Mercer said.
Ms. Mercer was introduced to the plight of the homeless through Chris Hansen, who worked for Mercer County. Dr. Hansen, who was in charge of medical services, asked her to go to the motels with him “to see what is going on in your town,” she said.
The conditions were not good. A mother and her children were crammed into a motel room, paid for by Mercer County. There was no food, no plan and no hope. Dr. Hansen told her that there were hungry, homeless children in town. So, fix it.
“I took on a challenge that I thought was going to be easy. Just tell the people in this rich town (Lawrence Township) that there are people who are homeless and who need help. Now, 25 years later, we are still fighting the fight,” Ms. Mercer said.
But back to that first Thanksgiving.
“It was too horrible” to think that those children would not have a Thanksgiving meal, Ms. Mercer said.
Once the women had delivered Thanksgiving dinner, they realized that they had to do more. They reached out to groups to help cook and deliver meals to the motels five days a week. Mercer County would move clients from motel to motel — wherever there was a bed, she said.
About a dozen years ago, HomeFront opened its Family Preservation Center on the grounds of the Katzenbach School for the Deaf in Ewing Township. The center recently moved to another location, off Scotch Road, where it has expanded its programs to help clients — mostly single mothers with children — get back on their feet and become independent, Ms. Mercer said.
“We have done a good job of moving people quickly from homelessness to a home,” Ms. Mercer said. “It’s much better to have Thanksgiving in your own home. It’s not just the meal, but preparing and cooking your own food in your own way.”
But even as HomeFront has helped families regain their footing, “we keep seeing a new stream of people,” Ms. Mercer said. “In the old days, it was generational — people who always thought they would be poor.”
“But now what we are seeing is people who are episodically homeless — people who thought it would never happen to them. People who used to give us donations are now our clients. They did not expect to be here,” Ms. Mercer said.
Walking through HomeFront’s headquarters on Princeton Avenue, Ms. Mercer paused to point out some Thanksgiving baskets full of the ingredients for a traditional meal. HomeFront expects to distribute about 2,500 baskets — a number that has been growing, she said.
“It’s not just the homeless (who will receive a basket). There are still people who are living on the margin — (people who work) at daycare centers, assisted living facilities and fast-food restaurants. They can’t make it. They are the working poor,” she said.
“I used to believe that someday, we would not have to prepare a Thanksgiving basket, (so) I am grateful for the community that has stepped forward (to make donations) as government has stepped back. The community seems to be stepping forward,” Ms. Mercer said.
