NJ Needs to Stop Barring Youth Volunteers from Sandy Recovery Work

Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church is serving as a Volunteer Village for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. We have converted the Great Hall of our Education Annex into a housing facility for up to 36 volunteer workers — nearly all of them church groups from around the country — who are coming here on one-week work assignments, to help local residents rebuild following Hurricane Sandy.

We've encountered an unexpected legal difficulty, though, when it comes to volunteer workers under the age of 18. There is an obscure section of New Jersey child-labor law that prohibits youth under 18 from being within 30 feet of a construction site.

The law allows for two precisely-defined exceptions: students at vocational-technical schools who are learning the building trades, and youth working under the auspices of a recognized non-profit agency on construction of "affordable housing" (in other words, Habitat for Humanity projects). The problem is, the Sandy-damaged houses we would like to have young people work on - under competent adult supervision, of course - are not affordable housing, under the strict definition of the law. 

I defer to the legal experts for the final word on this, but it looks to me like removing a single word from the state statutes would solve the problem. The word is “affordable.” Without that single word, the existing exception that allows young people to work on affordable-housing construction sites could be extended to include Sandy-recovery construction sites as well.

Now, let me give you an example of how bizarrely convoluted this situation can become. Habitat for Humanity of Northern Ocean has branched out, following the storm, to deploy volunteers to do Sandy-recovery work (and very good work it is they’re doing). My understanding is that, under the law, Habitat can legally welcome youth volunteers to help paint a wall on one of their regular new-housing construction projects, but if the same person were to pick up an identical paint roller in a Sandy survivor’s home, the organization could be cited for violating child labor law.

Now, whether or not a law enforcement official would ever actually issue such a citation is beside the point. When large groups of workers, months before their anticipated deployment, are doing their advance planning, they don’t want to hear us say, “Yes, it’s technically illegal for your young people to join you on the work site, but don’t worry, we don’t think anyone’s going to enforce it.” The law’s the law. That’s more then enough to cause work-team organizers to say, “Sorry, Jersey Shore, your state government gives us no choice: we have to go elsewhere.”

Believe me, it’s already happened. We’ve had several large volunteer groups cancel out on us already, for this very reason. It’s going to continue to happen — to the detriment of our neighbors who’ve been hard-hit by the storm — until the law is changed.

New Jersey's law is quite unusual, compared to other states. In past years, our congregation has sent short-term mission groups to Gulf-Coast states affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, as well as to rural West Virginia, and have never before encountered a legal obstacle to young people fully participating as members of their work teams.

The same is true of many of the church groups we’re talking to. Experienced group leaders, who have done disaster-recovery work around the country, are dumbfounded when they learn that one part of New Jersey state government is pulling out all the stops to get help to Sandy survivors, while another is saying, “No, wait a minute, none of those helpers can be under 18.”

We have notified our 10th District state legislators about the problem, and their staff members have responded sympathetically, but we’re still waiting to hear if they’re going to do anything more than “look into it.”

You can help advance Sandy recovery work by picking up the phone and calling Senator Jim Holzapfel or Assemblymen Greg McGuckin or Dave Wolfe and telling them you’d like to see the law changed that prohibits youth under 18 from helping rebuild Sandy-damaged homes. Please remind them that this is still a disaster area, so this change needs to be fast-tracked. You can phone them at 732-840-9028, or you can email them through their web page:http://district10.senatenj.com

Thank you. It will only take a minute of your time to do this, but it’s hugely important to restoring the Shore.

The Rev. Carl Wilton, Pastor

Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church