NJ mayor rips Bon Jovi for bringing homeless people to his town

🍲 The mayor of Toms River has a bone to pick with Jon Bon Jovi

📚 He says the rocker's pop up soup kitchen is attracting more homeless

🍲 Bon Jovi has fired back at the accusations

TOMS RIVER — The mayor of Toms River is giving rocker and New Jersey native Jon Bon Jovi a taste of “Bad Medicine” when it comes to the homeless in his township.

Mayor Dan Rodrick is mad at Ocean County Commissioners for allowing Bon Jovi’s JBJ Soul Kitchen to open a pop-up at the Toms River Branch of the Ocean County Library, saying it’s attracting more homeless people and disturbing residents, according to Shore News Network.

The pop-up kitchen opened on Feb. 11 to allow diners to pay for their meals, and pay it forward to cover the suggested $12 donation for those who can’t afford their meal. Those who do not have money can volunteer at the soup kitchen instead.

Rodrick said Bon Jovi should confine his outreach to the original location, or as he put it, bring the homeless to his (Bon Jovi’s) mansion in Middletown.

The Republican mayor came down hard on the Ocean County Board of Commissioners and other local officials, claiming Toms River is being unfairly burdened “by a political strategy to centralize homeless services in the township,” Shore News Network reported. He also criticized them for ignoring residents’ complaints and concerns about the number of homeless people on the benches across from the library.

He said Toms River had already found housing and services for everyone in the town’s two homeless encampments last year, but county officials continue to bring in more homeless people.

Rodrick also claimed this whole thing to be a money grab, and not a genuine concern for the homeless population.

“These people are being dropped by in our community by agencies pretending to be homeless advocates who get paid by the head to import homeless people into our town from all over the state and the East Coast,” Rodrick told the New York Post.

“These agencies are making millions of dollars importing homeless. Their plan is not about compassion; it’s about people wanting to profit off the homeless issue,” he claimed.

Bon Jovi has now clapped back against Rodrick, his words, and his claims.

“The JBJ Soul Foundation and JBJ Soul Kitchen are committed to ending homelessness through real solutions. We are not here to just move people around or force them into the shadows. Our Foundation has built nearly a thousand units of affordable and supportive housing,” the organizations said in a joint statement, and published in the Post.

Bon Jovi, who, with his wife Dorothea, opened the first JBJ Soul Kitchen in Red Bank in 2011, went on to say that through this nonprofit, they can connect people to resources and services, whether they need things like mental health support, housing, or employment.

As far as Rodrick’s claim that this is a money grab, Bon Jovi begs to differ.

“We are unsure where the mayor thinks millions of dollars are trading hands, but we are completely unaware of any such programs and receive no such funding. We invite anyone to the BEAT Center in Toms River or to the JBJ Soul Kitchen Pop Up to see what we are doing to end homelessness and hunger in our community,” the statement says.

The pop-up at the Ocean County Toms River Library Branch is supposed to be in operation through May.

For their own safety, Rodrick is advising residents to visit the Brick Branch of the Ocean County Library until the pop-up soup kitchen is gone from the Toms River branch.

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