Jerry Carino

@njhoopshaven

TOMS RIVER -- Matt Mendez is 35 years old, homeless and suffering from mental illness. He called the newspaper, looking to tell his story.

I called him back.

“I live in the woods in Toms River,” he said. “People freeze to death out there every winter. I don’t want to die in the woods.”

Nobody deserves that fate, but Matt’s motivation for reaching out goes beyond his personal welfare. He wants folks to know how easily the mentally ill can slip through the cracks. Of the 30 or so people he estimates are sleeping in the woods, “many of them have severe mental illness,” he said.

Out there on society’s margins, they lack a voice. Mendez wasn’t asking for much; just to be heard.

A few days before Thanksgiving, as the temperature plummeted, I invited him to meet me for coffee.

RELATED: NJ cuts aid to its poorest residents

‘You can fall from anywhere’

At Dunkin Donuts in South Toms River, Matt was clean-shaven and neatly dressed in a V-neck sweater and jeans. His sneakers had seen better days, and he was rail thin at 5-foot-8 and maybe 115 pounds.

I offered to buy him lunch. He accepted only a cup of black coffee.

Mendez’s story in brief: He graduated Toms River High School East in 1999 and has battled mental health issues for years (he said bipolar disorder and schizophrenia). He held jobs in electronics and construction, but when his mother and father died within a month’s span four years ago, his world fell apart. With no family to lean on, he fell into depression, entered New Jersey’s labyrinthine mental health system and wound up on the street.

Matt survives thanks to help from local churches and friends, one of whom pays his cell phone bill. He forages trash cans for food and hides his few belongings around town because teenagers once destroyed his tent home in the woods. He said he refrains from drug use, but sees mentally ill friends turn to heroin because “there’s a hurting inside” from an inability to get help.

RELATED: Homelessness getting worse despite numbers

“A lot of people think the homeless are (in that situation) because they’re on drugs and alcohol,” said Carol Latif, executive director of Ocean County Hunger Relief. “It’s way bigger than that.”

Latif’s nonprofit, which is based in Toms River, manages 26 food pantries that feed thousands of local people each month. The need has risen sharply over the past five years, since superstorm Sandy and the Atlantic City casino closures.

The most recent estimates put New Jersey’s homeless population around 9,000, including 400-plus in Ocean County. The real numbers might be much higher.

“Sometimes they are living in their car or on someone’s couch,” Latif said, noting that many declines to declare themselves homeless, skewing the statistics. “A lot of them are ashamed about their circumstances. People judge people on what they have.”

Latif would know. Now 67, she was homeless briefly in the early 1990s as she fled a domestic violence situation.

“I was an executive at a major corporation, and I fell,” she said. “You can fall from anywhere. A friend took me in, and I ended up selling all my jewelry. In the meantime, I was treated by people who knew me like I was stupid or a bum.”

A nightmare, and a dream

Mendez said unresponsive dealings with the state’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services -- which has been described in media reports as underfunded, overburdened and difficult to navigate -- cost him opportunities to retain state-assisted housing.

“I want the community to know, it’s not just us,” he said. “This is how the system works.”

I called and emailed a spokesperson from the division, but got no response.

“This winter is going to be cold,” Mendez said. “Probably six, seven people are going to freeze to death” in Toms River alone. He’s witnessed a few up close.

“You close your eyes and hope you wake up,” he said. “It’s a nightmare.”

So what can we do, other than shake our heads?

“The problem looks so big; you’re afraid to try to do something,” Latif said.

But she has an idea: A one-stop complex where homeless or indigent locals could turn for help. It would provide clothes and food, of course, but also assistance in acquiring identification, finding transportation, applying for jobs and addressing medical conditions like mental health.

Given a kick-start in funding, Latif would open one right in Toms River, to help Matt Mendez and others assemble the puzzle pieces in one place.

Great idea, but how can she possibly sustain the funding for such an operation?

“After Sandy, I watched the most amazing thing happen -- 48 states sent donations to us,” Latif said. “Anybody who sees the need and has a heart is going to come forward. The problem is they don’t come forward because there is no plan in place. Unless you have a vision, nobody is going to back you up. I’m telling you; I have a plan.”

In the meantime, Matt Mendez’s plan is to speak up. His message: When you have a mental illness, you’re one or two bad breaks away from sleeping in the woods.

“I’m doing this for me and the people around me,” he said. “I’m going to keep on fighting until I don’t have no breath in me.”

For more about Ocean County Hunger Relief, visit the nonprofit's website here or call 732-505-HELP.

Carino’s Corner appears Mondays in the Asbury Park Press. Contact Jerry at jcarino@gannettnj.com.