During the winter in Seaside Heights, the gentle ocean breeze gives way to lashing wind and the December sun shines mockingly bright, with a false promise of warmth.
The boardwalk is a sprawl of shadows, kitschy T-shirt shops are fortressed off behind gunmetal gray gates and the waves roll for no one. When the beach blanket carnival leaves town and summer revelry fades into memory, the darker side of the iconic resort community comes into focus.
Beyond the boardwalk is a morass of aging motels housing a hidden population of troubled tenants year-round, including the mentally ill, recovering drug addicts, domestic violence victims and sex offenders.
Most motels date to the post-WWII boom years, when Seaside was known as "The Town that Fun Built," a working class paradise. But decades of declining tourism and ongoing Hurricane Sandy woes have created a new business model.
Rooms where vacationers once slept are being rented to the Ocean County Board of Social Services for emergency shelter.
Nearly three quarters of the borough's 40 motels are in this survival mode, staying afloat by housing the poor in "welfare rooms," marked with Department of Community Affairs stickers.
Even as some motels shelter sex offenders or people struggling with drug issues, they continue inviting families and prom kids to spend the night. Many spots have glossy websites, enticing travelers with images of sparkling pools and the siren song of free continental breakfast. The motels look whimsical and retro online but in real life more than half failed recent inspections.
When summer is in full swing and room rates skyrocket, the homeless remain, but out of sight. The visitors who breeze into town for holiday weekends probably are not aware of who's next door.
There are 27 motels in the tiny borough that shelter the homeless for months, sometimes years. Owners collect between $1,795 and $2,625 in public money per month for each room. The nightly rate doesn't fluctuate by season. Year-round, it's $50-$85 a night. Tourists, meanwhile, pay up to $300 for a room between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
A review by NJ Advance Media of inspection reports, motel contracts, police call logs and dozens of interviews paint a picture of the poverty and blight inside the rooms:
- Of the 27 Seaside motels that shelter the homeless, only four passed recent state inspections. The rest were cited for health and safety hazards, ranging from broken smoke detectors and missing carbon monoxide alarms to electrical problems and hallways strewn with debris.
- There are currently 11 sex offenders living at eight borough motels, according to the New Jersey State Police Megan's Law registry. They dwell in welfare rooms through the quiet of winter and the bustle of summer. Management is not obligated to notify guests of their presence, according to a State Police spokeswoman, Trooper Alina Spies.
- Two high-risk sex offenders are housed at the Travelodge and the Palm Villa Suites, which sits less than 1,500 feet from the Hugh J. Boyd Jr. Elementary School.
- The homeless live and work at some motels, getting paid in cash below minimum wage, according to tenants. A convicted sex offender said he was the night watchman at the Travelodge while sheltered there for a year. Others clean rooms for cash.
"There used to be nice places here," said Sal Rispoli, 70, who operates the Heights Central rooming house. The Brooklyn native said he vacationed in Seaside as a teenager. "I brought my kids up here. Now, I look at the motel across the street and he rents to drug dealers and prostitutes."
Borough administrator John Camera said it's dubious for many owners to market the motels as daydream retreats in a world famous destination while getting paid to house emergency assistance recipients, particularly those coming out of the criminal justice system.
Borough officials have feuded for nearly three decades with motel owners who rent welfare rooms. Camera said the practice hurts tourism as the town tries to rebrand itself and attract more families.
"The motel owners have found that it makes sense to keep the steady income from social services right through the summer season, but vacationers who come for seasonal motel rentals aren't expecting and often aren't pleased with the idea of year-round people living in the motel during their summer stay," said Camera, who is retiring at the end of the month.
Dispelling "Sleaside"
Over the past five years, Seaside has loomed large in the zeitgeist, first as a raucous party town on "Jersey Shore" and then as a symbol of Hurricane Sandy, with the sunken Jet Star rollercoaster.
Going into 2015, there's a rallying cry for redevelopment. The owners of both amusement piers have promised to bring in a new lineup of neon behemoths and luxury townhomes are under construction along Ocean Terrace.
Town leaders are hoping to dispel the "Sleaside" Heights stereotype. Unfortunately, Camera said, most of the motel owners aren't joining in the effort. As the borough undergoes its transition, some owners said they are increasingly reliant on money from social services.
The income is a lifeline for George Lauterbach, owner of the Mark III and the Aquarius Arms motels in Seaside. He said he'd be out of business if he relied on summer traffic. The downside is negative feedback from travelers about the tenants who live at the motel year-round, he said.
"I have problems with relief people asking customers for cigarettes, asking for money," Lauterbach said. "This is the last stop on the bus stop and people get off here because they don't have money and they're stuck here in motels. I moved to Seaside from Brooklyn for a better life. It's not a better life."
Placing a large concentration of emergency assistance recipients on a barrier island, disconnected from the resources that could help them become self-sufficient, creates a vicious cycle of poverty, crime and substance abuse, Camera said.
Although crime has declined in the borough over the past decade, according to the State Police Uniform Crime Report, Seaside's crime rate per capita is still 11 times higher than the Ocean County average.
"One of the basic premises of social work is when somebody is in need, the preference is to keep that person near their family, near places they're familiar with, near places where there's work, all the things that are not true of Seaside," Camera said. "But when push comes to shove, a social worker is going to make the placement in Seaside because it's better than having them go homeless."
It's not ideal to group the poor in a single borough, said Board of Social Services spokeswoman, Meredith Sheehan, but Seaside has a plurality of motel owners who've voluntarily agreed to participate in the emergency initiative called Special Response.
"We can only work with owners who identify they want to work with us," Sheehan said. "We can't just come in and say we're going to use your motel."
When the town council adopted an ordinance in 2006 to limit the number of welfare rooms in each establishment, a group of motel owners sued the borough for discrimination. Today, the cap is 20 percent of total occupancy but the rule has been difficult to enforce because some owners reliable occupancy numbers, said Christopher Vaz, the borough's new administrator.
Melissa Grayson said she applied for Special Response housing in July and was placed at the Knight's Inn in Seaside. The manager gave her a list of rules: no pool, no visitors and no talking to other guests.
"You're supposed to sit in your room and do nothing," said Grayson, 32, a registered sex offender and single mother who is sheltered at the motel with her son, 2. She was convicted when 16 of molesting two children while babysitting, according to the Megan's Law registry.
She said she suffers from a seizure disorder and has no income beyond social security disability checks. Her family is 45 minutes away in Tuckerton.
"The roof leaks, the windows leak, the door leans sideways so cold air blows through and there's bugs," Grayson said. "The summer is the worst because they don't want you talking to the paying customers. My son would see the little ones going to play at the pool and he'd want to go but he can't. It's like living in a sardine can. It's like being in prison but worse because in prison you can have visitors and phone calls and, ultimately, my kid is in jail too."
Calls to the owner of the Knights Inn, Sandipkumar Patel were not returned. Patel, known as "Mr. P" in Seaside, runs five motels in the borough, including the Travelodge, records show. He pleaded guilty in September to federal charges of visa fraud and filing a false tax return. He continues to operate the motels while he awaits sentencing Jan. 6.
Patel allegedly orchestrated a visa fraud scheme, submitting false work papers for Indian nationals who came to America illegally. The scam involved technology and medical staffing companies, not the motels, according to the criminal complaint filed by U.S. Attorney, Paul Fishman. Patel, who lives in Edison, did not respond to requests for comment submitted via email and fax. He did not answer the door at his home.
The police have visited the Knights Inn more than 80 times over the past year, according to a log of emergency calls. They've been summoned to break up fights, investigate theft and make drug arrests.
"I don't feel safe," Grayson said. "The chick that was in here before me was a heroin user. When she hit a vein and the blood splattered, she never cleaned it. I had to wash her blood off the walls."
Sheehan said Special Response clients have social workers to address trouble at the motels.
"They shouldn't feel isolated," Sheehan said. "We go out and do visits to our clients at the motels. When we are aware of issues, we are in communication with the motel and the issues are addressed for the most part immediately. But certainly we need to know if there are other issues out there that maybe we're not aware of so that we can look into them."
Grayson said no one was stopped to check her room. She uses the dresser area as a kitchen, with a fridge, a microwave and a hot plate piled up amid slanted racks of shoes and bread. The television is boxed in with pantry items, Cheerios, minute rice, sugar and instant creamer. Dirty dishes go in the bathroom sink and shower.
"I've talked to my social worker there six times and complained," Grayson said. "When you complain, repercussions come back at you. The manager is meaner to you. But what are you going to do about it? You have nowhere else to go."
Borough officials are engaged in discussions about how to address the motel issue, Vaz said. The council, however, is holding off on action because Mayor Bill Akers is still mourning the loss of his son, who died of a suspected drug overdose in October.
"We're waiting for the right time when he's ready to come back," Vaz said. "A view from 35,000 feet, we have been trying to see what other towns that are similarly situated like Belmar, Ocean City, other communities that have seasonal housing and a seasonal tourism trade and see what their ordinances look like.
Days of Mom and Pop
Seaside Heights is Jersey's second poorest beach town north of Atlantic City, (Asbury Park is the poorest), according to a Census survey of per capita income. The year-round population is 2,887. On holiday weekends when the weather complies, more than 100,000 people visit, Camera said.
During Seaside's heyday, circa 1950, the motels were locally owned family businesses, Vaz said. He grew up in town - his father is councilman Tony Vaz - and wrote a 2010 book, "Seaside Heights: A Postcard History."
Working class vacationers used to check into dreamily named motels and spend a week or longer, said Vaz. It was busy enough during the summer for the businesses to shutter after Labor Day. A downturn took root during the late 1980's, when medical waste wash-ups and a sputtering economy coalesced to crush tourism, according to Vaz.
Mom and pop motels were sold off to investors from out of town and the new owners began taking in year-round tenants from social services, Vaz said.
"In the old days, the owner of a motel or apartment was also a fireman or a member of the American Legion or the Seaside Heights Italian American Club," said Vaz, whose parents used to run a motel called the Victoria Court.
Vaz said, "The investor-owners don't have a connection to the community. They don't see the heavy burden in terms of municipal services, the police department as well as the school. The social services people typically aren't working, probably won't be able to get a job, especially in Seaside Heights because there's no jobs here in the wintertime and it brings domestic violence, it brings drugs and it brings other types of crime."
Seaside has more registered sex offenders per capita than any other town in Ocean County, according to City-Data.com, a website that measures community demographics.
"Our police department is aware of it," Camera said. "The general assistance people, the ones without children, the individuals, a larger percentage of them vs. the general public have had some sort of criminal issues in the past whether they're sex or drug related."
Dozens of sex offenders have cycled through Seaside motels the past decade, records indicate. During that time period, 21 rapes were reported in the borough, according to State Police statistics. Just one case, however, is known to have involved an offender. In 2007, a convicted rapist who was placed at the Knights Inn (then called the Atlantic Motel) sexually assaulted a woman in a neighboring room. No rapes have been reported in Seaside in 2014.
David "Wolf" Degroat, a moderate risk offender and former Travelodge tenant, said it took him years to get an apartment. He now lives with his fiancee, Fawn in a one-bedroom place a block from the beach.
"People with a sex offense label are cast out, ostracized, propagandized, harassed, defamed, slandered, beat up, attacked, all by people who are predisposed to judgment and discrimination," said Degroat, 44, who served six years in prison for having sex with a 14-year-old girl in 2005. He said he's been calling himself "Wolf" since he was a teenager, embracing the name after a peyote-induced spirit journey with a group of Native Americans in North Dakota.
"They refuse to open their eyes and see the person for who they are rather than the crime that they committed," Degroat said. "I don't judge the man by the mistake unless he's repeated that mistake too many times. I own the fact that I committed a crime by having sex with someone under the age of 18. I know who I am regardless of whatever label I carry."
Degroat is one of several Special Response tenants who said Patel, aka "Mr. P," put them to work and paid them in cash. Degroat said he watched over the Travelodge and doubled as maintenance man at two other Patel motels, the Cloud 9 and La Fontana. A woman sheltered at the Knights Inn gets $4 per room to clean after tourists check out, according to Grayson.
Sheehan said Special Response tenants are not supposed to be working at the motels.
"We encourage people to get jobs but we certainly want to make sure they're legitimate jobs and they're on the books," Sheehan said. "Part of our social service plan is to engage the clients, so if somebody is just at the motel all day, there's definitely something wrong with that scenario. There's things that they should be doing, whether they go to a program every day, whether they're in work activity every day. If somebody has a job on the side and is getting paid under the table and not reporting it to us, that is an issue."
The Wyndham Hotel Group, parent company of the Travelodge and the Knights Inn, has launched an investigation into the two motels.
"We consider guest safety and security to be of the utmost importance and as such, require that each of the independently owned and operated hotels within our franchise system comply with not only our own brand standards but also all local, state and federal laws," said Christine Da Silva, vice president of marketing communications, in a statement.
For all the stories of solitude and crisis in Seaside, there are counter narratives about kinship and altruism.
Patricia Forse, a widow and former nurse from Toms River, went homeless after her husband died of lung cancer. She said she lost everything in her fog of depression and was placed in motels for several miserable months before she found Heights Central, a rooming house Seaside.
It was an adjustment at first, living in the 14-room facility with four shared bathrooms and a view of bulldozers corralled around a Route 35 construction site. Forse said that the owner of Heights Central, Sal Rispoli, talked her through her difficulties and now she's embraced Seaside, for all its faults, as her permanent home.
"Seaside is jaded by mismanagement but you can't take away the beauty of the ocean and the beach," said Forse, 63. "It's always been crazy here. I used to think it was terrible but Seaside is growing on me. It's quirky and it's weird and I think it's always been a little daydream in my head to live at the beach."
-- By Lisa Rose | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com