New Brunswick's Dignity Center Offers Opportunity to Rinse Off, Reinvigorate

The city is marking the return of the facility that welcomes men and women to literally rinse the streets off their backs and reinvigorate their spirits.

“It’s called the Dignity Center for a reason,” said Keith Jones II, New Brunswick’s Director of Human and Community Services. “There are several things we take for granted: washing your hands in a sink, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, putting on clean socks and fresh undergarments. We take that for granted because there are people in dire need of it all the time.”

The Dignity Center, which utilizes the locker room facilities at Memorial Stadium on Joyce Kilmer Avenue behind the New Brunswick Middlesex School, re-opened last week.

Anyone is welcome to shower, shave and use the bathrooms on Tuesdays and Fridays. Morning sessions run 8:30 to10:30 a.m. and afternoon sessions run 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.

Each person gets a personal hygiene kit that includes items such as soap, shampoo and deodorant. Not only is the Dignity Center stocked with towels, but each person can get a fresh set of clothes and something to eat.

There are separate facilities for men and women, available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Jones said the plan is to distribute 100 vouchers for free Coach Bus rides to Memorial Stadium from other parts of the city.

The Dignity Center initially opened during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, serving hundreds of people during a time when the need to maintain good hygiene was most vital.

Jones said the city closed the Dignity Center after it partnered with New Brunswick-based nonprofit, Archangel Raphael’s Mission, to provide shower services in the area of Elijah’s Promise on Neilson Street and Ozanam Inn Men's Shelter on Abeel Street.

The impetus to reopen it stems from the lingering COVID-19 (the state’s Department of Health reported on Monday 1,453 new cases and seven new deaths). Though the cases of monkeypox are much lower, people who are homeless and food insecure are more at risk.

Jones said the pandemic has presented a challenge to the homeless, who often rely on their ingenuity to access bathrooms and sinks.

“COVID changed everything,” he said. “It made us get creative, but at the same time, it gave a lot of places reason to shut their doors. It presented a lot of challenges for establishments as well as for the population that need it, and those challenges are still presenting themselves even as we’re coming out of the pandemic. There are going to be some places that never open their doors again. The pandemic created that situation.”

Jones, who also coordinates the city’s Code Blue and Code Red programs that provide residents with a safe haven during periods of extreme temperatures and weather, also said the Dignity Center will be a resource as the city begins to see an uptick in evictions.

Plus, New Brunswick is being affected by a wave of migrants who recently crossed over the border into Texas.

According to an Aug. 4 New York Times report, some migrants from Central and South America who have been caught in a political power play between Republican governors in Texas and Arizona and Democratic officials in northeast states are being shepherded onto buses and given a one-way ticket to Washington, D.C. and New York.

But when three or four families from Honduras turn up in New Brunswick with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Jones said the city tries to help as best it can.

“This is the work we do,” Jones said. “This is the work that is required by all of us.

”Story & Photo Credit By Chuck O'Donnell