Kala Kachmar

@NewsQuip

Every few days, Nancy Vance totes a wagon full of empty water jugs on the back of her bike to the Howell Walmart, where she fills them with water to bring back home.

Although some might call her homeless, home for Vance is a small community in the woods about a half-mile from the Walmart on Route 9. She’s lived there a year with her pit bull, Trixie.

The small encampment is also the home to eight others who once lived in Tent City, which was a community of about 120 homeless people living together in a wooded area of Lakewood. It was shut down by the township in July 2015.

The Howell encampment is run by the same minister – the Rev. Steve Brigham of the Lakewood Outreach Ministry Church– who also started and operated Tent City. He spends his time helping homeless all over Monmouth and Ocean counties, he said.

MORE: 'Destiny's Bridge' documents Lakewood's Tent City

The encampment has been around for about a year, Brigham said. It’s tucked in a wooded area off a dirt road adjacent to Route 9 in Howell.

The community doesn’t look much different than tents you’d see at a campground, except there are common areas like a mini chapel under a tarp, an open wooded structure that serves at the pantry and food storage area.

There’s also pepper and tomato plants in buckets instead of in the ground, in case the folks had to leave in a hurry, Brigham said.

Deeper into the woods, a path leads to rows of wildflowers and a community prayer garden the residents built.

“We tried to spruce it up a bit,” Brigham said. “It gives us a sense of community and serenity. You could hear a pin drop at night, except for the crickets.”

The encampment, which Howell Township knows about, is about a tenth of the size of Tent City. Folks who live there generally work or go out looking for work every day, Brigham said.

“Rent around here is through the roof,” Brigham said. “If you’re low-income and single, it’s almost impossible to live around here.”

READ: Lakewood's Tent City closes

Vance, who recently got a job as a part-time janitor at an all-girls school in Lakewood, also cleans houses on the side. She lived in the original Tent City, but wasn’t one of the original members who got a year of free housing in a settlement with the township.

She said she became homeless in 2013 when she found out her landlord was illegally renting to her and her roommate.

“You can’t put a sticker on the homeless and say they’re all drunks, jobless and mentally ill,” Vance said.

Vance said she receives disability payments after a severe accident she was in the year before. She has to pay for her propane, food and prescriptions, which would make paying rent difficult for her.

Brigham, who also lives at the camp, said everyone respects each other and gets along well.

MORE: What you need to know about Howell's $14M sewer project

“This has been a very safe place for me,” Vance said. “I’m comfortable. We work as a team here.”

Town Manager Jeff Mayfield said the mayor and some of the councilmen have had discussions with churches and nonprofits to see what they can do about helping the homeless population in town.

Mayor William Gotto and Mayfield have been out to the encampment.

“No one’s bothering anyone – there have been no issues,” Mayfield said. “We don’t have the problems that the Lakewood Tent City had.”

Some of those problems included fights, fires and unruliness, he said.

“People think they are, for lack of a better term, just bums on the street,” Mayfield said. “But they’re not. They’re regular, good people who just can’t make it work right now.”

A lot of the homeless people who were living in Tent City are living in woods in Brick, Toms River, Howell, Lacey and Lakewood, Mayfield said.

“We’ve chased them off private property several times when the owners have complained,” he said.

Kala Kachmar: 732-643-4061; kkachmar@gannettnj.com.