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NJ group spends time with homeless people to connect them to services
The Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey is a nonprofit behavioral health agency that assists people who have no stable housing.
CLIFTON — The city’s police are investigating the death of a homeless man whose body was discovered in a patch of woods near Ackerman Avenue at Route 21, officials said.
According to police, on Jan. 5 at approximately 2:21 p.m., officers responded to a 911 call regarding an unresponsive adult male in a wooded area, down an embankment between Route 21 and the Botany Plaza shopping center near LA Fitness.
The site included a makeshift shelter filled with personal belongings. Police, fire and EMS personnel responded, however, Cesilio Coyotzi, a 49-year-old Clifton man, was already dead.
The cause of death remains under investigation, but foul play is not suspected at this time, police said.
Police are also looking into whether the temperature, which fluctuated between the low 20s to low 30s on Jan. 4 and Jan. 5, played a part in his death.
While relatively few in the city had been aware of the man’s death, one of his acquaintances, Nichole Murcko, reached out to northjersey.com to share stories about Coyotzi.
Murcko, who met Coyotzi when she became homeless four years ago, said he was known as “Rambo” among the homeless who live in that area.
“He was a kind man,” Murcko said. “He’d give you the shirt off his back.”
She said the people who live outside in the Botany area watch over each other. She said there are more than a dozen people in that community.
Murcko found an apartment in 2023, which she shares with her fiancé, however, she said she still provided Coyotzi and the others in the Botany area with blankets.
Coyotzi, she said, would occasionally find part-time work at a bar on Highland Avenue.
He would also at times stay at the Clifton Recreation Center on Main Avenue. The problem, she said, is that the shelter would sometimes fill up and people were turned away.
City officials said when freezing temperatures activate the state’s Code Blue alert, anyone who needs shelter can contact 2-1-1 or their local police department. If a shelter is full other accommodations are sought.
Besides Clifton’s shelter, there are some warming centers and shelters in Paterson and Passaic, which operates Dignity House, as well.
Clifton City Manager Nick Villano said the city’s Community Recreation Center, 1232 Main Ave., which serves as its Code Blue Shelter, has been open daily and is expected to remain so. Temperatures are expected to fall below freezing for the next few weeks.
Not all those who are homeless however will accept help, officials said. There are also those who are under the influence of alcohol and other substances that might be turned away.
Murcko said she knows of a homeless woman who will not go into a shelter because she cannot bring her dog.
Passaic County emergency shelters
- Clifton Community Recreation Center, 1232 Main Ave., Clifton, 201- 739-1475
- Dignity House, 276 Broadway Passaic, 973-365-3900
- Salvation Army, Paterson 541-545 W. Broadway, Paterson, 973- 820-1234