By Charles Layton
The State Department of Community Affairs has revoked the boarding home license of the Warrington Rest Home in Ocean Grove and closed the place down.
The Warrington, which faces Wesley Lake at 22 Lake Avenue, provided room and board for veterans and physically challenged people. It had a history of problems.
According to Committeewoman Mary Beth Jahn, state employees began evacuating residents and their belongings before 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The officials were attempting to place those residents in other long-term facilities, including some in Ocean Grove, Jahn said.
“However, some former Warrington residents have taken to hanging out in front of the Warrington, sometimes consuming alcoholic beverages,” she said. “If anyone sees this type of activity, please call the police. We do not need squatters in the Warrington now that it is closed.”
Blogfinger was not able to contact state officials late Friday to learn the reason for the closing.
This past December, the manager in residence of the Warrington, Linda Sue St. Amand, was charged with theft of money in excess of $5,000, according to Neptune Police.
Police said at the time that St. Amand, 56, stole the money from a 64-year-old man with special needs who was residing at the Warrington. According to a press release, “Police were alerted to the incident by the victim’s bank (Valley National Bank) when employees noticed suspicious activity involving his account.”
St. Amand was linked to the crime through physical evidence and statements to the police, the press release said.
We do not yet know whether this incident had anything to do with the decision by the Department of Community Affairs to revoke the Warrington’s license and empty out the building. The DCA is an agency that deals with a range of housing issues, including fire safety and building codes and standards.
According to Monmouth County tax records, the Warrington belongs to Jack Ancona LLC of Long Branch. That company was incorporated in 2006, which was also the year it purchased the Warrington. The sale price was $1,275,000, according to county records.
I’m glad this rest home is closed. This place was unfit for humans to live in. The furniture & mattresses were probably picked up from the trash, the whole place was filled with mice, bugs and truthfully the men & women who lived there are better off now. The owner is just a slum lord. He lives in a beautiful clean house and just didn’t give a hoot about his tenants. All he did was have the tenants patch up and do the things that he needed a carpenter or plumber with a license to do. The tenants were paying good rent and were treated like homeless people. I’m glad the state finally closed them down, it’s about time.
I had lived at the Warrington for the past five years. The owner was real slum lords to let this place run down. I will take action for that reason and for other stuff as well. I do not wish to give my name. You can call me Roy.
OgGee: OK, thanks.
Wisher, you misread post. The million-dollar renovation I wrote about was the house a couple doors down from The Warrington. (It sits along Wesley Lake, at the corner Central and Seaview Aves.) It was in response to Ken’s post. Obviously very little money has been put into The Warrington.
I am happy the Warrington closed because it will no longer be a drain on the police and EMS departments
Not tolerating the likes of the Warrington is not elitism, whining or shameful. It’s not the residents; it’s the owners, managers and (since it got this far) the State.
Some of those guys were running around Vietnam with things blowing up around them, and couldn’t take it. More vets are coming home from these wars in the middle east. If you had a sticker supporting the soldiers in 2003, can’t you remember how it felt to support our troops? What we see when we see someone is a slice in time of their life. So it is important not to dehumanize them.
You have to question whether all the rhetoric about freedom is just on selected issues that are just cherry-picked.
When I bought my OG home a dozen years ago I thought that the year round boarding house residents were what gave the town diversity and character and made it interesting more than anything else. They were (and I hope to some degree still are) very much in the mix that attracted me, along with the gay population, the Methodist population, the year-round locals (used to be some on my street, no longer are), and the second homeowners.
Now the town is trending strongly toward homogeneity, a bunch of rich second homeowners, whining about their “quality of life” and their property values. So disappointing and frankly, boring. These folks were here first. When no one wanted to live in OG, boarding house owners got tax breaks to house them because the institutions where they lived were closed down. They kept the town going through rough times, and now that the town is recovering, people want to “shut them down” and “get rid of them.” Commenters are happy that, evidently, buses came to take them from their homes with no notice. To me, this attitude is shameful.
Clearly, there are two different visions of Ocean Grove presented here. One is a gentrified town of affluent homeowners with well maintained properties and an absence of the “transient” element. The other is a mixed community, where the affluent, the renter, and the mentally ill boarding house SRO tenant live together with the resulting concomitant issues.
I don’t think many would argue that the movement towards the first vision that has ocurred over the past 10 years has been a positive for the town, Think back to what this place was like in 1990. The real question is how far should it go?
Devo-I was a 20 plus year tenant in OG. I raised my son there, was on OGCP for 10 plus years, volunteered for other various things, and my house was on the Garden Tour last year. Many tenants take better care of their homes and are more engaged in the community than the slumlords and weekenders who have taken over this town but are technically “homeowners.” Do not paint all “tenants” with the same broad brush.
Sure Devo blame the victums not the poor management that is responsible for maintaining a clean, healthy, and positive envirement for these people.
I have complained for years to Neptune that the Warrington was a bed bug,mouse,rat infested building and it was a shame that Neptune was allowing these people to live in these conditions…….That’s It.
PC is not my forte, but I would be putting the blame on the management, owners and those in charge, not the residents.
Devo: You have “sympathy”? Really? Seems more like disdain. Since when did OG become “my town”? It is our town and like it or not that includes tenants & boarding house residents. They pay rent which in turn helps home owners pay their mortgage & taxes. They prepare & serve your meals when you go out to eat. Many do volunteer work here in town. So you see many actually do contribute to the quality of life. Again please do not count me among your “we.”
P.S. – I am a homeowner here since the mid 90’s.
Let’s face it folks….transients do not help the real estate values and lower the quality of life. I strongly disagree with a point made below that tenants and transients contribute to the community. While I have sympathy for the mentally ill and other down on their luck people, I certainly do not want them living in my town. Those folks almost destroyed this place 20 years ago. We need to keep going in the other direction. Hurray for the closure of this horrible boarding house.
I bet if the police and town inspectors were extremely vigilent and did many/regular and detailed inspections of the other similar places in the Grove, we could shut down a few more (either directly or through raising their operating costs).
Shut down for repeated violations without rectification…the residents would have probably fought removal no matter the notification. These are mentally ill people who may not grasp what is occurring. Ultimateley the place was a dump and needed to be closed, you got bedbugs just from looking at it. Hopefully with the closure of the Warrington and the Park View we can start rehabbing that terrible area of Lake Ave.
So whats left? The Whitfield, The Cordova, maybe The Allenhurst?
Bythesea: Don’t count me among your “we.” Not every boarding house or group home resident is trouble. There are various reasons folks live there: they offer affordable rents in an otherwise expensive rental market, they are in transition, they are veterans, etc. Many of these residents work in the shops in town & many volunteer and participate in various groups & projects in town. Again not all residents are trouble. It is a minority who are and yes those ones should be gotten rid of. As for many being mentally ill I say – there for the grace of Gxd go you and they are more likely victim then victimizer.
As for wanting just single families in town I ask: Is it a crime to be a tenant? Many homeowners rely on their tenants rent to help pay their mortgage & high taxes. Many tenants are well qualified to own yet choose to rent rather then own. Many tenants volunteer & participate in the various groups & projects in town. They are as much a part of the community as homeowners are.
Sorry that with a simple swipe of your sword you can’t do away with this faction of OG.
OhGee: A million dollars in interior renovations? Yea, OK. I saw the inside of the Warrington; and the only way a million dollars was spent is if they had to remove plutonium from every square inch. Neglect is too generous a concept to apply to the horror of poor conditions there.
You are right about the human dignity issue. They were rounded up and placed and worse on buses I heard, some kicking and screaming — ripped from our community like dogs. And these are men who were willing to die in a rice field for our nation. The least you can do for a veteran is tell him three days in advance that he has to leave his home, or will be leaving. The cowboy roundup the police and officials conducted there was a disgrace, and risky. Fire, police and all the rest of the drama. It is amazing that with such a reckless and thoughtless approach there were no serious incidents.
And are there any more high dramas coming for the other Ocean Grove residences? What about the Sea Crest? Is there going to be an orderly and dignified next time?
Ken, I agree the renovation a couple of doors down from The Warrington is exceptional. But let’s face it, the new owner literally has money to BURN. He bought the property for over a million dollars and has spent well over another million dollars renovating it. (Just ask his contractor!) While, yes, not every property owner is a “Koplitz,” most OG homeowners don’t have nearly the kind of money this gentleman has spent.
Last year I temporarily rented an apartment next to the Warrington. The majority of the tenants were mentally ill veterans. They were pretty much harmless (non-violent) but were quite intimidating if you weren’t used to them. Pest control services were there on an almost weekly basis. New tenants were dropped off by taxis, often with their hospital gowns on and a plastic bag for their posessions. It was very sad. It is despicable how our government treats mentally ill veterans in the state of NJ. Although I don’t know if other states treat them any better.
Let’s convert it to condos. Oh wait, where would they park?
This is awesome news! That place was terrible and definitely a blight upon the community. We need to get rid of every boarding house and group home in this town (still a few to go). The more private, single-family owners in this town, the better off we will be.
On the other side of the Warrington is a magnificent award-winning rehabilitation which shows what can be done in Ocean Grove. Not every property owner is a “Koplitz.” Less negativity and more positive thinking please.
The Warrington is right next to the infamous Park View isn’t it? Let’s hope the Koplitz boys aren’t allowed to buy it.