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Homes for
New Jersey
145 W. Hanover St.
Trenton, NJ 08618
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Questions for Your Lawmakers
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  1. Over 130,000 very low-income families (earning under $25,000/year) in New Jersey pay more than half their income for rent. This year New Jersey launched a $25 million state rental assistance program to help 3,000 of these families afford safe apartments. Will you support continuing this funding, at the current $25 million level or more, as part of the state budget?
  2. The average two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey rents for over $1,000 per month and "starter" homes in most areas now exceed $200,000 - prices that many hard-working New Jerseyans earning less than $15 per hour (or twice the minimum wage) cannot afford. Will you support using additional state resources to build more homes and apartments for lower-middle-income and low-income families?
  3. Thousands of low-income homeowners, particularly senior citizens and people with disabilities, lose their homes each year in New Jersey due to modest home repair and refinancing needs that they can't afford. Will you support creation of a comprehensive state program using existing state funds to address this issue?
  4. As the urban housing market in New Jersey has rebounded, many communities are using their redevelopment powers to create opportunities for market-rate developers at the expense of lower-income homeowners and renters. Although redevelopment can be a valuable step in the revitalization of our cities, some of the projects being undertaken around the state will eliminate long-standing residential communities, uprooting large numbers of families and individuals who have lived and worked in those cities for many years. Meanwhile, relocation assistance levels have not been increased in New Jersey since 1972. Will you support legislation, currently before the Legislature, to bring these benefits in line with the cost of inflation since 1972? And will you support state action to better balance much-needed redevelopment activities with measures to ensure that families are not needlessly displaced?
  5. In most suburban and rural areas, almost the only housing being built is large single-family houses, so-called "McMansions," on over-sized lots and age-restricted communities for senior citizens. Our young middle-class families are being frozen out of a growing part of the state's communities, including the towns where many of them grew up. Will you support legislation that creates state incentives for municipalities that provide zoning for higher-density, mixed-income development, and that gives priority to state infrastructure, transportation and open space funding to municipalities that zone for higher-density, mixed-income development?
  6. Thirty-nine (39) percent of all renters in New Jersey earn 30 percent or less of the regional median income. For a family of four, this translates into $18,000 in Salem and Cumberland counties, $24,000 in Essex and Union counties, and $27,600 in Somerset and Middlesex counties. More than half of these families pay over half their income in rent. Despite the problems they are facing, little or no new affordable housing being created with public resources is directed to help very low-income renters. Do you agree that at least a quarter of the housing built using state resources should address the needs of these families?