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State Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph Doria spoke at semi-annual meeting of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey about changes in the COAH rules.

“Under the new regulations, if a developer, for example, gains approval to erect 100 houses in wealthy Tewksbury in Hunterdon County, 20 of them must be affordable. If a developer constructs a 200-unit apartment building in Newark’s reviving Penn Station neighborhood, 40 must be affordable. COAH is expected to give preliminary approval to the new regulations Monday.”

In addition, “Doria said much of the money to finance Gov. Jon Corzine’s plan to erect 100,000 affordable units in 10 years will come from $168 million in builder fees that municipalities have been collecting and basically sitting on for as long as a decade.”

To read the full article in the Star-Ledger click here.

Gov. Jon Corzine made it official when he appointed Joseph Doria to serve as Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs. He will begin on October 9th. According to the Star-Ledger “Doria said his among first priorities will be confronting the issues of affordable housing, local government finances and Meadowlands development. ‘As a mayor and legislator, I know firsthand about the impact the Department of Community Affairs can have on people’s lives,’ he said.”

To read the full article in the Star-Ledger click here.

In New Jersey the housing crisis has always been self-evident. However, this weeks release of new census data the answer is now crystal clear.

According to the data as reported today by the Star-Ledger , “Fully 17.1 percent of all New Jersey homeowners used half or more of their income

to pay mortgages, property taxes and utilities in 2006, the Census reported. The percentage of householders in that category was up from previous years; in 2005, they represented 15.3 percent of mortgage holders, in 2004, 13.8 percent.”

For renters “New Jersey rentals were ranked the third most expensive in the country, behind Hawaii and California. The median cost of an apartment in 2006 was $974 per month. Like homeowners, many tenants spend a huge proportion of their income on shelter. Around one-fourth of New Jersey renters also spent 50 percent of their income on rent last year, according to the Census.”

In addition, “In New Jersey, where housing costs have been growing faster than income, the share of homeowners spending at least half of their income on housing costs is significantly higher than in the U.S. overall, the Census found. Nationwide, the figure is 13.9 percent. New Jersey’s median monthly housing costs ($2,130) as the nation’s second highest, after California.”

What do you think about the new data? Share your comments.

To read the full article click here.

As the data becomes available online links will be provided.

The summer issue of Shelterforce has been published. As always this is an important issue. As the subprime mortgage crisis corrodes the lives of millions of U.S. homeowners, activists and agencies are scrambling to answer the cries for help. Meanwhile, politicians and policymakers are formulating platforms in response to this national tragedy as the country readies for national elections. Read about these issues and others in the summer issue of Shelterforce, a journal published by the National Housing Institute.

Issue #150, Summer 2007 Cover Story: Subprime Slide

Losing Ground By Sarah Ludwig
In New York City’s communities of color, years of abusive lending practices have led to record numbers of foreclosures.

American Nightmare By Desiree Fields, Francine Justa, Kimberly Libman, and Susan Saegert
Owners threatened with the loss of their homes suffer traumas invisible to most Americans - and to the advocates who serve them.

Meeting the Foreclosure Crisis By Rep. Marcy Kaptur
The congresswoman from Ohio’s north coast maps out a strategy for responding to the national emergency.

Read the rest of this entry »

A recent study by the National Priorities Project idneitifed New Jersey as being 45th in the percentage of low-income people receiving food stamp in 2004. According to the study the percentage receiving benefits was 38.9%. The national average was 50.2%.

In addition five New Jersey counties - Hunterdon, Bergen, Sussex, Somerset and Middlesex - were listed in the top 25 counties with the lowest percentage served by the Food Stamp program.

To read the press release click here.

To view the entire study click here.

We found this article in the Bergen Record of interest. The following is a brief summary of the article. To read the full article click here.

By Harvey Lipman, STAFF WRITER August 14, 2007

Bergen County’s United Way is a completely different entity than it was five years ago and most of the change is attributable to Tom Toronto.

The world of philanthropy was undergoing dramatic changes in 2002 when the United Way board hired Toronto as president and gave him the mission of steering a new direction.

People weren’t interested in handing their money over to the United Way for its leaders to decide what charities would get the cash.

“Donors were designating where they wanted their money going. We were becoming just a mail drop,” said James E. Healey, chairman of the local United Way board. “We had to find a way to make a big impact in Bergen County without a lot of money.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Census Bureau has released its most recent population estimates. In today’s Star-Ledger there was a fascinating article about the changes and what they tell us about the future of New Jersey. The article had statistics for the entire state and by each county. To read a summary of the date and to access links to all of the data click here. To view statewide data as well as the data by county click here.

The following is an excerpt form the article. To read the full article click here.

New Jersey’s melting pot flavors far-flung counties
Thursday, August 09, 2007
By Robert Gebeloff and Julie O’Connor
Star-Ledger Staff

In New Jersey’s older urban areas, the pattern has held for years.

As the white population declines in places like Essex, Union and Hudson counties, the minority population grows.

But this decade, there’s a new twist: Minorities are also moving into the state’s more far-flung counties at a faster rate than whites, U.S. Census figures re leased this morning indicate.

The numbers show that blacks, Asians and Hispanics accounted for two-thirds of the population growth in the New Jersey counties that had the lowest percent of minority residents in 2000.

The spread of diversity to these mostly white counties is driven in part by upwardly mobile blacks and Hispanics leaving New Jersey’s cities and the general affluence of many Asian immigrants. But it is also a byproduct of service economy jobs generated by overall growth. Read the rest of this entry »