On the fifth day of a heat wave Thursday, the temperature soared into the mid-90s inside a Hawthorne Avenue boarding house, a home of last-resort for 22 people discharged from psychiatric care.
NEWARK -- On the fifth day of a heat wave Thursday, the temperature soared into the mid-90s inside a Hawthorne Avenue boarding house, a home of last-resort for 22 people discharged from psychiatric care.
Tucked away in the corner of a fetid, cluttered basement, inspectors found a small stack of unplugged but functional air conditioners. They demanded an explanation: why weren't these window units in use?
"They'll go out the door," house manager Michael Bullock told city health, fire and building code officials and a city police officer, led on a surprise tour by state Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex). Anything of value -- from small appliances to towels and toilet paper -- residents will sell, Bullock said. Fans were removed from the rooms for same reason, he said.
"Well, then you supervise this place," Codey replied. "No human being should have to live like this."
Codey made nearly the same remarks when he last visited 383 Hawthorne Avenue 4-1/2 years ago and found an open sewer line jutting out of the basement floor and an unlocked cart full of psychiatric medication. The former governor, who has made his legislative mark by highlighting the deficiencies in care for people with mental illness, said the unannounced visits improve living conditions, at least temporarily.
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"Unfortunately some of the worst are in urban areas. Does that mean they are acceptable here? No, and they are not acceptable to the mayor either," Codey said, referring to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka who joined the senator on a surprise raid of another boarding home with no working toilets or heat in February.
Robert Davison, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Essex County who accompanied Codey, said he sees progress since the senator began conducting these raids about a decade ago.
"There are less of these ... facilities, and believe it or not, they are in better shape than they used to be -- unbelievable as that may sound based on what we just looked at," Davison said. "And the (state) Department of Human Services and state psychiatric hospitals do appear to be doing a better job of not discharging people into those facilities, unless (the patients) insist."
More pressure is needed to demand the boarding home operators invest some of the profits back into the properties, Davison added. Based on conversations with a handful of tenants, they are paying through their disability checks anywhere from $654 to $800 a month in rent.
"If he is charging $700 for a shared room, you can pay for the supervision so the air conditioners aren't stolen," Davison said.
Before they left Hills Boarding House Thursday night, the entourage of city officials cited boarding home owner Charles Hill with more than a dozen violations ranging from illegal electrical wiring, to unsanitary conditions, to the oppressive heat that exceed a federal limit of 81 degrees. They promised to return on Friday to check whether the most serious problems had been corrected, Codey's aide Justin Davis said.
Code officials reluctantly agreed among themselves the violations were not serious enough to shut the home, which had passed a state inspection in June, according to a certificate hanging on the wall.
The city was also out of housing relocation money, Health Officer Michael Wilson said. "If we shut it down, where are they going to go?"
Reached by telephone Thursday night, Bullock declined to discuss the violations or react to the surprise inspection. "They are just doing their job like we are just trying to do ours," he said.
Codey also made an unannounced visit to the Pine Acres Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center in Madison, an affluent community in Morris County. He said he had gotten a tip the air conditioning wasn't working on the second floor of the nursing home, where many of the patients with dementia and alzheimer disease live.
When Codey arrived, accompanied by Mayor Bob Conley and mental health association employees, including a nurse, they found conditions to be not as serious as they had expected.
Using two handheld thermometers, Davis found temperatures in some rooms hovering between 82 degrees and 86 degrees, above the legal limit of 81 degrees. But hall fans and individual air conditioning units minimized the discomfort.
"We monitor each patient to see what their needs are," said Labiel Gerson, the facility administrator.
"You are not hearing me. Some of these people are not capable of saying it is hot in here," Codey replied. "We'd like to see it at a lower level."
Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.