As a part of the Colts Neck High School Law and Public Service program, students have been given the opportunity to make significant contributions to the lives of others while progressing in their own educational endeavors. One of the students, Janet Ye, has treasured her time with the Emergency Housing and Advocacy Program (EHAP) over the past few months.
Headquartered in Freehold, EHAP aims to provide people suffering from homelessness with housing and self-advocacy skills to allow them to sustain life. It has worked to provide more than 100 people each week who experience food and home insecurities with the means to continue their lives through EHAP’s empathetic guidance.
Ye has been immersed in EHAP’s efforts, as she has worked alongside clients in need within the community. Joan Mandel, the advisor of client casework, has exposed Ye to the client casework sector of EHAP. Ye has performed initial intakes for clients, along with assisting them with applying for various opportunities that significantly improve their ways of living, such as Section 8 Housing and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Alongside Ye’s interactions with those experiencing homelessness crises, she has also spent time working with Nina Rizzo, an EHAP member who handles grant writing, communications and administrative issues.
Rizzo and the entire EHAP team have been so grateful to work with such passionate students from the Colts Neck Law and Public Service program. They shared, “Janet has shown kindness and cultural humility to the clients and demonstrates a genuine attempt to understand the unenviable plight of our clients.”
With devotion to EHAP’s goals, Ye has expanded her impact on the community beyond the lines of her internship experience, as she developed flyers for beneficial local events for people in need and introduced a clothing and food drive within Colts Neck High School.
“I have been given the chance to sit down with clients and hear their stories firsthand, which has been extremely educational and eye-opening,” Ye said. “My time at EHAP has allowed me to learn from experienced, compassionate and knowledgeable teachers who are kind and willing to teach me about real-world problems”
As Ye continues her time with EHAP through the remainder of her senior year, she looks forward to learning more about struggles within her own community and discovering the ways she can help solve them.
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