Monarch Housing’s Blog!

The July 11, 2007  reception for the New Jersey Congressional Delegation is gaining momentum every day.

The Reception will be held in the Mansfield Room in the Capitol. The Room is S-207.

The Reception will begin promptly at 3:30 PM and end at 5:30 PM.

More than forty individuals have committed to attending. If you have not done so click here to register or get more information. Together we can and will make a difference on July 11th.

This summer Congress is voting on several bills that will increase funding that is crucial to our efforts to end homelessness. Among these are two of major significance: Read the rest of this entry �

This article on Housing First appeared this week in the Boston Globe.

‘Housing first,’ a radical new approach to ending chronic homelessness, is gaining ground in Boston.

By Florence Graves and Hadar Sayfan | June 24, 2007

AT THE LATIN ACADEMY, a majestic former school built in 1900 near Dorchester’s Codman Square, Joe Jeannotte is participating in a social experiment.

Jeannotte lives in a sparsely furnished new two-bedroom apartment. Light streams through large windows, and a burgundy and forest green couch faces a small television. He looks older than his 38 years — gaunt, scruffy, with dark brown hair — and shares the place with his girlfriend, Judy, who asked that her last name not be used. Often, the noise of construction filters in as workers rehab other apartments, but the couple doesn’t complain. Not long ago, they were convinced they would never have a place to live at all. When they moved into the new place, at public expense, they had no home and no money, and both had been struggling for years with heroin addiction.

Read the rest of this entry �

A new program will collect and redistribute to homeless people toiletries discarded at the Fresno, Calif., airport’s security checkpoints, reported The Fresno Bee. “It seems senseless for those products to go to a landfill when you have a large community of people across the area that could benefit from them,” said Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), who designed the program. Each week, between 100 and 300 pounds of items such as shampoo, deodorant, and shaving cream are collected at the Fresno airport. Under the plan still being finessed, items will go to the Fresno Rescue Mission, to be shared with other agencies. According to an official with the Transportation Security Administration, security officials quickly approved the program, which is also run at Bakersfield’s Meadow Field airport. Toiletries collected at Meadow Field are distributed to Kern County homeless shelters. Florez and Larry Arce, executive director of the Fresno Rescue Mission, hope Fresno’s toiletries reuse program will be so successful that it will be adopted by other airports

The NJCDC Supportive Housing 2002 project is a permanent, affordable and supportive housing development sponsored by New Jersey Community Development Corporation. When completed at the end of September 2007, the site will provide twelve (12) permanent, affordable and supportive one bedroom housing units for very low income individuals with a mental illness. The site also includes a resident manager’s unit. Every unit will have it’s own living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.

Read the rest of this entry �

This is from our friends at achasan [Email address: achasan #AT# nhi.org - replace #AT# with @ ]">ShelterForce.

“Subprime Slide,” the cover story in the Summer 2007 issue of Shelterforce magazine, explores whether the nation’s foreclosure crisis has knocked affordable homeownership off its foundations.

Across the country, increasing numbers of low- and moderate-income homeowners with subprime mortgages are being hit with rising payments they can’t carry. Shelterforce’s authors explain why in New York and elsewhere, predatory-lending practices are having devastating effects on communities and families, particularly in neighborhoods of color. They examine how housing advocates are responding to the wave of delinquencies and explore the traumas faced by homeowners trying to escape or recover from foreclosure. And from Ohio, one of the states hardest-hit by the storm, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur maps out the lending reforms needed to stop the flood of foreclosures and prevent its recurrence.

PLUS: How a vendetta against ACORN grew into Attorneygate — Read “Mock the Vote” to learn why a conservative smear campaign against ACORN, long under the radar of mainstream media, may have a profound influence on the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.

You will find a summary and links to these and more feature articles below. Contact Alice Chasan [Email address: achasan #AT# nhi.org - replace #AT# with @ ] with questions. To view the full issue or subscribe to Shelterforce, click here. go to

Read the rest of this entry �

FHLBank Pittsburgh Awards $8.625 Million in Grants; 31 Projects With More Than 1,100 Units of Affordable Housing Funded

PITTSBURGH, PA, June 26, 2007 - The Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh (FHLBank Pittsburgh) has approved more than $8.6 million in grants under its Affordable Housing Program (AHP). The grants will help finance 31 housing projects across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, creating 1,106 units of housing with total development costs of more than $141 million. To read the full press release click here. To read the full list of awards click here.

Among these was one in New Jersey, NJCDC’s Hawthorne Heights project.

Hawthorne Supportive Housing
Hawthorne, NJ

Lender:
PNC Bank

Read the rest of this entry �

CONGRESS URGED TO DECLARE NOVEMBER AS “NATIONAL HOMELESS YOUTH AWARENESS MONTH”

WASHINGTON, D.C. · June 20, 2007 /PRNewswire/ — The House of Representatives on June 20th heard testimony at a hearing today about the crisis of youth homelessness, disconnected youth, and youth aging out of foster care. Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D-NJ] and Sen. Mel Martinez [R-FL] have introduced S. Res. 226, a bi-partisan resolution declaring November as “National Homeless Youth Awareness Month.” Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Jerry Weller [R-IL] and Rep. Mike Ferguson [R-NJ] are working to introduce a similar resolution in the House.

The idea for a national month to build awareness of the critical issue of youth homelessness – which leads children as young as 11 years old into such horrible situations as human trafficking and drug use – was initiated for The RE*Generation, a campaign launched by Virgin Mobile USA and Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of the Virgin Group, to connect at-risk youth with young people who want to help and make a difference around the issue of homeless youth.

Read the rest of this entry �