After living outdoors for about 18 months, Kevin Pridemore said he needed some time to get used to his new Matawan apartment.
"Doesn't even feel real yet," the former resident of Lakewood's homeless encampment known as Tent City told the Asbury Park Press.
Pridemore is among the first group of Tent City residents to receive a year of housing as part of an agreement between Lakewood and the roughly 122 residents of the homeless camp. To date, 23 campers have been housed or given the means to return to a home in another state, said Mike McNeil, president of Solutions To End Poverty Soon, or STEPS. Apartments in Lakewood, Brick, Toms River and most recently, Jackson have been made available, McNeil said. The Ocean County Board of Social Services has been instrumental, he said.
Lakewood authorities wanted to put an end to the encampment led by Minister Steve Brigham of Lakewood Outreach Ministries, which offers shelter for disadvantaged people suffering with drug and alcohol dependencies, and mental illness. Some people there are just poor.
Brigham has looked after campers in the woods off Cedar Bridge Avenue at the South Clover Street for seven years.
"Minister Steve is a good man," said the 36-year-old Pridemore, who is originally from Michigan.
But as the camp grew, so did the problems. Wood burning stoves from the encampment drew numerous complaints from neighbors about respiratory problems from the smoke. Tent City became a thorn in the township's side.
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Township officials tried to evict the campers in June 2010 but the homeless filed a lawsuit, stopping Lakewood from moving them. Judge Joseph Foster of Toms River Superior Court said the township must find alternative housing for each camper before uprooting them. Subsequently, the Township Committee recently contributed $250,000 to STEPS to help with the moves.
Angelo Villanueva, 49, who lives in Toms River, vowed in June he would not spend a third winter living in Tent City. A mason by trade, he became homeless when the economy tanked. He started working again and received his first month's rent from the Brick Presbyterian Church and left the camp at the end of summer. But Villanueva was laid off again. Fortunately, he was part of Tent City's legal fight and was entitled for the one year of free rent.
"It came at the right time," he said. "It will give me a year to get my stuff together. I'm happy too. I just have to get a job. I need a job doing masonry. I got my resume done and I'm ready."
Pridemore said he lost his home after alcohol and prescription drug abuse stripped him of his fiance, two children, occupation and finally, his home. The last days of his relationship with his family included a felony charge stemming from using his shotgun for target practice "to relieve some stress" and a charge of driving under the influence and being an unlicensed driver, he said.
"I have always been an outdoorsy kind of guy," he said, explaining why Tent City seemed like a natural fit when he was homeless.
Pridemore thought he would spend the summer camping and save money working as an arborist. With no driver's license and an aching back, work was near impossible. He said he gave up drugs and alcohol and tried to set a good example at the camp.
Pridemore will pick up day-care duties for his two kids and look to work at night. The children and former fiance live with her parents around the corner from Pridemore's new apartment in Matawan.
"What are the chances I would get a place so close to my kids," he said.
"This one made us all cry," McNeil said of Pridemore's reunion with his children.
The rents are not paid out in a lump sum but payments are made monthly once the person moves in, McNeil said.
"We are going to try to do this right and they will have the services that they need," he said. "We are not going to just give up on them because we are housing them."
