Spotlight New Jersey: Soulful pop and Christian musician Natalie Alese

Spotlight New Jersey: Central Ward Cougars celebrates 40th anniversary

Spotlight New Jersey: Pluckemin Presbyterian Church

Spotlight New Jersey: Ms. New Jersey Senior America 2025

Spotlight New Jersey: Vocalist Carrie Jackson

Spotlight New Jersey: À La Mode club at Watchung Hills Regional High School

newjersey

News 12 Staff

222spotlightnj2

So you know, uh, as you can see we're serving from our front porch at this point, um, during COVID when everything shut down we weren't allowed to have individuals inside of our facility, so what we started doing was, uh, serving people from outside. Uh, and at this point the video was showing an early stage, um, of us trying to figure it out, so we started serving from right outside our front porch. Eventually down the line we were blessed, uh, with a grant to, uh, build an outdoor tent in the back of our facility. So currently we're serving, uh, food still outside but under a tent that's heated in the winter. Heating in the winter and fans in the in the summer, yeah, we had to learn we really had to learn how to do it during the pandemic, um, we had food lines, um, going both ways. The soup kitchen, we were serving 750 meals a day and for the food pantry we had 1000 people. Lined up for food, nothing that we ever even expected to happen and so we weren't able to do a lot of case management, um, but that's something that Wendy and, um, Michelle do. um, Wendy, you wanna talk about your case management? So the case case management, excuse me, is basically, uh, around rental assistance. Um, we have been blessed to have grants to help people to help pay their rent. And it also helps people to learn how to. Budget Um, which is huge because people don't understand that they have to save and just because they got paid doesn't mean they're supposed to blow it on something extravagant like a TV or whatever you have to pay your rent and the program helps people to learn how to handle paying their rent. Um, it's intensive sometimes and folks have people have problems they have problems, um. It's not that simple whether it's mental health, whether it's substance abuse, um, or something tragic happened in their life and they just have trouble. Managing themselves so that's what we do we talk to people to help them if we need to get them extra help for uh counseling this is what we do so that they can be a productive citizen in life. It sounds like you all are a one stop service center we try to we try to be and when we can't we, you know, we'll call another agency to uh say hey can you do this or we've run out of funding in this particular. The category do you have funding that's still available and one of the things that's really happening now that we're seeing um is just very frightening there are so many warrants of removal where people are going to court and we're getting emails and phone calls saying I'm I I'm going to be locked out or I've been locked out what can you do? And unfortunately there's just not enough funding to go around and that's one of the the issues.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/1ddb56f4-7c1b-4aa7-8a0b-67b4e70df426/1ddb56f4-7c1b-4aa7-8a0b-67b4e70df426.transcribe

222spotlightnj3

Saint James's Social Service Corporation in Newark is a vital operation for the community. We were talking about the warrants of removal, and that's something we want to get into now with Michelle Bailey Brown. Go ahead and tell us about that. OK, so the war. Removals are actually the final process of the court system, so where the actual tenant is being removed or locked out from their apartment, um, so there's different steps. It starts out with the, uh, tenant and landlord complaint, then they go through mediation, then through that time frame between 15 to 30 days they give the courts give the tenant uh opportunity to come up with the funds, and that's where our programs, if we have the funding, could assist the the client. Um, and if then we can't assist them or no other agency can assist them, then it moves to the, the landlord files a warrant of removal, and that's the final process where the person gets actually locked out of their apartment. That has to be devastating. It's, it's, it's, it's really, really, really heavy, really heavy. They don't give that much time either. Once, once you get it, you only have a few days to try and get it together and then if you have children, yeah, it's, it's, and it's devastating for us as, um, case managers. At one point in time, um, we actually had a therapist to come in to meet with our case managers because it's a, it's a heavy load, and Michelle has a, um, a special population that we deal with. So I'm the senior case manager for, um, Ryan White, uh, program which is, uh, assist the. Clients who have HIV or AIDS, um, so our program, um, helps them with food, um, food inconsistencies, uh, the vegetables to keep their, you know, their bodies, um, healthy, healthy, um, even with the, you know, lockouts and water removals they do go through that process as well. Um, our program also has, uh, what's called EFA Emergency funding assistance to help them as well, um. I have over 127 less calculated um population that I assist. I do take it upon myself to meet with my clients after hours. Um, I'm in the school process of uh trying to become a therapist, so that actually helps if I can't assist them or don't have, uh, you know, other means to get them to other agencies in the in the program we're allowed to. Uh, refer them to actual, um, licensed therapists to assist them with their mental health, um, any, uh, issues with, uh, getting medication. I also help a lot of them are now losing their medical coverage, so I help them with that process as well.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/0ed958f6-3140-4254-b615-48d9ae50d1b9/0ed958f6-3140-4254-b615-48d9ae50d1b9.transcribe

222spotlightnj4_2026-02-22-07-00-15

We always are faced with long lines, uh, hundreds of people, whether it's for our food program, whether it's for the diapers, for formula, or people who just show up who are looking for assistance so they don't get. Locked out and you know most of the time they'll say um such and such told me to come here and I'll say Wendy Michelle um did you speak with them before or have you and they'll say no but you know when people are desperate. You know, we really have to try to do our very best to help them. Um, it's not always easy, believe me, and especially when people don't qualify for certain assistance for our food program anyone can come, anyone from the entire state of New Jersey, as long as they have an ID that says that they are a resident of New Jersey. Um, but for the rental programs they have to qualify. There's a certain income level. There's somewhere where there's a little higher income they could qualify or lower income. There's certain programs if they're already receiving. Subsidized housing, uh, there's certain funding that we can't help them with, so it really gets uh very discouraging because there's so many people who are in need. The emails from our website come directly to me. And then I forward them whether it be if people want to volunteer because we always need volunteers we need volunteers, um, sometimes we get 15 to 20 pallets of food delivered from the community food bank or another organization called Mend sometimes we have, um, drivers who say I have some extra food, can you use it? You know, and they have an 18 ft tractor trailer and. Wherever they were going to deliver could not accept it, but they find us and we say, of course, um, they're like angels on earth just like you two are because your names are out there in the community, right, definitely, uh, so you know this is, this is a team, but we also have another team, our guys who run the food pantry and those who work in the soup kitchen we serve about 200. 100 people a day in our soul food cafe. We're the only agency that does two meals a day. We do uh, lunch and we do dinner, and I know that's appreciated. Uh, uh, and so the whole thing was when we, I've been here for almost 27 years and I'm still here and, um, when I started we were feeding the homeless. Now we feed people who are hungry.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/2f184837-0075-4136-b764-2f48ca464375/2f184837-0075-4136-b764-2f48ca464375.transcribe

Executive Director Vesta Godwin Clark and Food Programs Director Nicole Jeffress joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss the services they provide to the community. 

Local

Crime

Weather

beWell

The East End

Crime Files

Local

Crime

Weather

beWell

The East End

Crime Files

Main

News

Sections

Choose Your Region

Be the first to know

Main

News

Sections

Change

Be the first to know

More Stories

More from News 12

STORM WATCH: Blizzard Warning in effect as record snowfall is expected for parts of New Jersey

LIVE UPDATES: Mandatory travel restriction to go into effect at 9 p.m.

SCHOOL CLOSINGS: Closings, delays and schedule changes in New Jersey

LIVE RADAR: Track the snowstorm

Why this potential blizzard could produce thundersnow

Gov. Sherrill warns of life‑threatening blizzard with heavy snow, strong winds across New Jersey

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Ad Choices

Privacy Manager