During a visit to a homeless shelter in Mercer County this morning, Governor Christie signed an executive order establishing the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Governor Christie visits a homeless shelter in Mercer County
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Christie says “it’s a step towards talking about this out loud – homelessness is one of those things that people don’t like to talk about…what we want to try to do is as best as we can, to, over the next 10 years, to end homelessness in New Jersey…it’s an aggressive goal, but I don’t think you achieve anything in life without making your goals aggressive –timidity brings timidity.”

The Governor says creating this kind of a 26- member Council is definitely a step in the right direction and “I expect to hear from them within the year- on what the plan’s going to be for government to get more aggressive about curtailing and ultimately ending homelessness in New Jersey over the next 10 years.”

Jersey Department of Human Services Commissioner Jen Velez says chronic homelessness has dropped 20 percent over the past year, but overall homelessness has increased, because of the rocky economy.


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