Residents of Safe Harbor: Judith

Judith, who has always dreamt of visiting London and is also a poet and aspiring screenwriter, is a resident of Safe Harbor.

"I grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey, a doughnut hole (Editor's Note: Metuchen is smack in the middle of the Township of Edison, New Jersey), and everybody knows everybody. Didn't realize that one day I'd run into a number of rough problems and find myself actually having to go to a shelter. I didn't even realize that they existed, but I'm glad they did. Flash forward years later out of Metuchen, I'm fifty-four years old, not expecting to be in a shelter again, but I am. I had no heating oil--that ran out--pipes burst. Water came down. What do I do now? I have no money, no job, no anything. I'd been looking for a job for several years; still nothing. And then, out of the blue, there was an article in the paper about the church a street from where I was. So I walked up the street, went in, and these people were super from the second I got in the door. I mean, you don't get that in Metuchen; it's every man for himself. Here it's a completely different story. Before I knew it, I was in Safe Harbor."
"What do you want people to know about what it means to be homeless?"
"Homeless can be anybody. It's a person who has no home, not a permanent one. You can be from any walk of life. You can be rich or poor. Things just happen. For me, it was my mother was sick. I took care of her for two years and she died and left me with nowhere."

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