The court’s decision blocks a May 1, 2013 resolution adopted by the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) at the request of the Christie Administration. The resolution required municipalities to turn over funds that were not “committed for expenditure,” but the Administration has refused to advise municipalities or the public at large what it must do to protect the funds from seizure. At that meeting, over fifty people showed up from people with special needs to the League of Municipalities to civil rights, environmental, and housing groups to oppose the raid on the trust funds, with not a single speaker in support. Despite that unanimous opposition from strange allies, after a closed-door session COAH approved the raid going forward.

“The Court correctly halted this process given the Administration’s refusal to follow the laws on the books,” said Kevin D. Walsh, Associate Director of FSHC. “This money is needed to recover from Hurricane Sandy. More than half of the money is from the nine counties hit hardest by the storm. The Administration is blocking homes from being built or fixed up at the worst possible time, when rents are increasing and homes are scarce.”

The Court granted the injunction in response to FSHC’s argument that the administration intended to take the trust funds in violation of the state’s regulations for seizing municipal trust funds. The regulations require the state to provide municipalities with notice and an opportunity to cure any defaults claimed by the state prior to seizing funds. Municipalities were directed to hand over funds by May 22, 2013 in letters issued by the state on May 1, 2013. The administration has indicated that it intended to take the trust funds without providing an opportunity to cure any claimed problems, and refused to provide a timeline or details of what would happen if municipalities contested the funds. The court’s order prohibits the state from moving forward with the seizure pending argument on the challenge.

Municipalities have proposed to use the funds for over 3000 homes. The funds are most often used by municipalities to support developments by organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and other community groups that help build homes for New Jersey families and people with special needs. Examples of some of the developments that would be blocked if the funds were taken include 148 affordable apartments serving Sandy victims in Middle Township, Cape May County; 120 homes for people with special needs in Edison, Middlesex County; and over 50 new Habitat for Humanity homes throughout Morris County.

“Blocking homes for people with special needs, Sandy victims, and hard-working families is wrong,” Walsh added. “It’s especially wrong when the Administration has ignored the law in an attempt to grab as much money as possible.”

According to testimony by DCA Commissioner Richard Constable last week before the Assembly Budget Committee, the governor intended to place funds that were taken into the state’s General Fund. Once that occurred, the funds would no longer be used to support the development of homes despite the critical need for such homes after Hurricane Sandy.

This is the second time in a year that the Administration’s efforts to take the trust funds have been the blocked by a court order. After beginning a process last year to seize municipal trust funds, the State was enjoined by the Appellate Division on August 10, 2012 because the trust fund seizure was not approved by the COAH Board.

The court’s order enjoining the seizure of trust funds, which is available here, is effective immediately. Municipalities are no longer required to comply with the May 1, 2013 letters issued by the State. The court’s order provides that the May 1, 2013 resolution “establishing a process for seizing municipal trust funds … is stayed pending further order of this court.”

Oral argument in the appeal on the issue of whether the court’s injunction should be made permanent, is scheduled for June 5, 2013 at 2 p.m. at Veteran’s Courthouse, 50 W. Market Street, Room 1114, Newark.

Today, Fair Share Housing Center is releasing a new report, “Faces of Sandy: A Fair Share for Renters,” showing the devastating impact of a lack of resources for lower-income renters to rebuild through the stories of six families. The report, which is available here, will be officially released today at the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey’s semi-annual Membership Meeting, with Dayna Hartley, an 18-year old high school senior in Ventnor, talking about her family’s struggle to rebuild after Sandy destroyed their home.

“We need to make sure that Sandy does not become the next Katrina,” Fair Share Housing Center Staff Attorney Andrew Todd F. Kunka said. “The Christie Administration needs to ensure that everyone has a chance to rebuild after Sandy - including the thousands of low-income renters who remain displaced today.”

“As renters, we were the hardest hit, with the least options for help,” Sal Amato, displaced from Point Pleasant, says in the report. Mr. Amato, who took the train from his Point Pleasant home to South Amboy when Sandy hit, then walked eight miles to a shelter, struggled for months to get assistance, bouncing between shelters and motels, and today still is living fifty miles from Point Pleasant.

Ms. Hartley will speak today about her family’s experience. Her father works for the City of Ventnor and worked to operate water pumps during Sandy to try to save others’ homes, but they still have not been able to find a permanent place to live, as Ms. Hartley works to finish her senior year in high school.

The report also details the Christie Administration’s underallocation of resources to help displaced renters, and makes a series of policy recommendations based on the families’ experiences for changes to make sure that families are able to come back, including:

• Find a way to bridge the gap for renters that need help now.

• Ensure that renters get a fair share of rebuilding resources.

• Focus funds on the most impacted communities.

• Make sure people have a choice about where to rebuild.

“Now is the time when the critical choices are being made,” Kunka added. “We hope the Christie Administration makes those choices in a way that enables everyone impacted by Sandy to return.”

Contacts:
Andrew Kunka - andrewkunka@fairsharehousing.org
Adam M. Gordon - adamgordon@fairsharehousing.org

And then we were told to leave the meeting room because, we later learned, the Administration did not want the public to witness how it went about rounding up votes to begin the trust fund raid. In theory, DCA Commissioner Richard Constable said that an executive session was needed for “litigation,” though he would not even say which litigation until pressed by a member of the Council of Affordable Housing’s Board. But it’s clear that when Constable forced the public to stand in the lobby, peering in through glass doors at the meeting for an hour, the discussion covered far more than litigation. While it is not possible to know with certainty what occurred behind the closed doors, the administration wanted as little sunlight in the room as possible when it did the dirty work. As too often happens when government officials violate sunshine laws, the public - and the truth - lost out.

For example, immediately after coming out of the closed session, John Winterstella, the former mayor of Manasquan, discussed what he thought would happen with the funds the Administration plans to take:

MR. WINTERSTELLA: I’d just like to say that I’d like to thank all the people that got up and spoke. I think it was very meaningful to me to understand especially some of the real life situations that obviously I don’t get to see on a regular basis.

I do want you to understand that most of what I heard here today will not be in any way changed by any action in this resolution as I understand it. And I just want to stipulate that I — we had as much of a discussion as we could under the legal basis and I’m going to recite my understanding of what’s going on, and Commissioner, I would appreciate if you find anything wrong in what I’m saying…

In the long run, I believe the net result of this will be that there will be some recaptured funds from municipalities that have not spent the money and it will go into a — it will go into the general fund, but it will be stipulated that the money be used, and I want to quote the law here, such programs — the money will be used for such programs to include, but not limited to state programs for rental assistance, homelessness prevention, residential services for individuals with developmental disabilities and mental illness, parolees and other individuals in the criminal justice system, shelter assistance and emergency assistance for individuals and families facing homelessness.

Now, I think this is on the record. I — I see people shaking their heads and so forth, but I’ve got to go along with what I’ve been advised by attorneys. And I think, Commissioner, if you’ll agree that those are the purposes that that money will be used for?

MR. CONSTABLE: Those are absolutely the purposes.

Of course, the words “including, but not limited to,” a loophole a mile wide, should have suggested something was amiss - the reality is that these funds will just go into the regular state budget, where money is fungible, and all that will be funded is existing programs. If the state takes $200 million in trust funds, there will be a net loss of $200 million available to develop housing for lower-income families in New Jersey. But the public did not have an opportunity to hear the conversation or respond (other than the shaking of heads Winterstella noted, a pale substitute for the broad access required by government transparency laws). The public doesn’t know what was said behind closed doors, but as Constable must have known, it is beyond dishonest for Constable to represent to the Board and agree that “most of what [the Board] heard … will not be in any way changed by any action in this resolution.”

As Constable knows, what the Christie Administration is doing here can’t survive the light of day. The Star-Ledger’s Editorial Board perhaps summed it up most succinctly: “Gov. Christie hid housing guidelines to grab trust fund dollars.” As the Ledger noted,

the administration deliberately left towns in the dark about how they should spend the money so that Trenton could justify grabbing it away… . Behind closed doors, we have now learned, officials at the Council on Affordable Housing were clarifying the regulations. But instead of telling towns about the new rules, the Christie administration buried them, apparently so it could justify grabbing the money to plug holes in the state budget.

Behind closed doors, a year ago, the Administration drafted regulations to tell towns what they needed to do to protect the money from seizure, told the League of Municipalities that the regulations were coming out, then never moved forward. Now, the Administration, in another process behind closed doors, says no regulations are needed because it’s self-evident what towns needed to do.

So self-evident, in fact, that when asked at the end of the meeting what the standard is for protecting trust funds from seizure, Commissioner Constable refused to answer, telling the head of the Corporation for Supportive Housing that she would be provided with it later. The Administration wasted no time in sending out letters to hundreds of municipalities the same day as the Wednesday meeting demanding municipalities to between now and May 17 to make their case about why their funds should not be seized. Participating in this process is like showing up in court to argue your case before a judge who won’t tell you what law is being applied.

The final ruling in this case, however, is far from over. As the unanimous opposition to this money grab from groups that rarely agree shows, the process is deeply flawed and unjust. And at the end of the day, the real victims are families like Joan Mignton’s - who talked passionately about how Christie’s move will shut her autistic daughter out of a chance to live independently.

We, and many unlikely allies, will be fighting to keep the story of people with special needs, the story of the Sandy victims in Cape May County who the Governor wants to take housing away from, and so many others, in the sunshine. The Christie Administration understands its money grab can’t survive public scrutiny - which is why they shut the public out of the real conversations. So let the scrutiny begin.

Contacts:
Kevin D. Walsh - kevinwalsh@fairsharehousing.org Adam M. Gordon - adamgordon@fairsharehousing.org

• 148 homes affordable to lower-income people in Middle Township, which would provide relief to lower-income families displaced by Hurricane Sandy;
• rehabilitating public housing damaged by Hurricane Sandy in Ocean City;
• making 146 existing homes more affordable to lower-income families in South Brunswick;
• helping the ARC of Essex County and Cerebral Palsy of North Jersey serve 10 people with special needs in Livingston.

In a rush to take the funds before the FY 2014 budget is passed, municipalities are being given three weeks, until May 22, to contest the proposed seizure of funds, based on standards that are unclear. The money would not be dedicated to homes or Sandy relief if recouped by the State.

A list of the funds the administration is attempting to take is available here.

“Governor Christie’s Sandy recovery leaves out the most vulnerable families,” Fair Share Housing Center Associate Director Kevin Walsh said. “Unfortunately, the Governor has focused on wealthy homeowners rebuilding while leaving out families still struggling to get out of motels. Today’s money grab shows where the Governor’s real priorities are.”

Testimony included a mother talking about how the seized funds would stop her autistic daughter from getting housing and a representative of a community of senior citizens in Long Hill who lost power during Sandy and are relying on the funds for a new generator, among dozens of others who lined up in universal opposition.

“Governor Christie is leaving New Jerseyans with special needs out in the cold,” Walsh added. “This is not the time to be shutting down homes for people with autism, people leaving state institutions, and the thousands of others on waiting lists throughout the state.”

“We thank Secretary Donovan for recognizing that the Christie Administration had not proposed enough in recovery to support renters, Spanish speaking families, and lower-income people impacted by the storm,” Kevin D. Walsh, Associate Director of Fair Share Housing Center said. “HUD’s action today is a good start, but more work remains to ensure that everyone impacted in Sandy has a place.”

The final plan approved today includes the following changes from the plan submitted by New Jersey to HUD in late March:

• Increased funding for renters: While the final plan still disproportionately favors homeowners, $75 million in funding was shifted in the plan to address the needs of renters. The Christie Administration had allocated only 22% of housing funds to renters, despite the fact that 43% of New Jersey households registering for FEMA assistance post-Sandy were renters. The final plan increases that share to 30%, which is an improvement but still not sufficient.
• Adding a plan to address people impacted with Limited English Proficiency: The Christie Administration had initially failed to provide a plan for how people for whom English was not a first language could access recovery programs, or even publish the initial plan for comment in Spanish.
• The final plan addresses greater access to Sandy programs for people whose first language is Spanish, and some greater access for primary speakers of other languages.
• Addressing damage to public housing: The initial plan only provided $5 million for rebuilding public housing impacted by Sandy in municipalities from Jersey City to Ocean City. The revised plan increases that allocation to $20 million and includes provisions for potential added funding in future rounds.
• Adding more detailed analysis of neighborhoods with the most damage: The initial plan omitted several HUD-required analyses of which neighborhoods had the most damage. The final plan adds that information, though still does not do enough to target funds to the hardest hit communities.

These changes were among those that Fair Share Housing Center along with 70 other civil rights, housing, planning and religious groups urged HUD to require.

Walsh emphasized that while HUD’s requirements are a good first step, there is still much to be done to ensure the Christie Administration manages the recovery in a way that includes everybody and complies with fair housing laws.

HUD’s announcement comes at a time when the Christie Administration is planning to take funds intended for lower-income families, people with special needs, and seniors, a move opposed by municipalities and housing advocates. Of the $142.2 million the State is attempting to seize, $81.5 million is in the nine counties designated by the federal government as hardest hit by Sandy. The administration has scheduled a meeting on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. to vote on seizing the funds.

“It is especially troubling that the Christie Administration, at the same time it is receiving federal funds for Sandy, is trying to block homes for people impacted from Sandy from being developed.” Walsh said. “As HUD’s requirements show, it is time for a new direction that addresses the needs of everybody impacted by Sandy.”

The revised Action Plan is available here.

The ALICE project started nearly 5 years ago to add greater depth to our understanding of the people in our community who live each day one crisis away from falling into poverty. These families make more than the official poverty level, but way less than an individual or family needs to sustain a reasonably healthy standard of living. Full of comprehensive statistics and analysis, this report is an asset to advocates throughout the state. A few statistics include:

More than one-third of households in New Jersey struggle to afford basic household necessities. In New Jersey, 312,762 households were living in poverty and another 769,900 were ALICE households in 2010. Thus, 1.1 million households in New Jersey have income below the ALICE Threshold.

ALICE households exist in all age groups. ALICE households exist even in households headed by someone in their prime earning years, 25-64 years old. Interestingly, senior households (headed by someone 65 years or older) are the largest ALICE group. Social Security has lowered the number of senior households in poverty, but does not enable self-sufficiency.

The largest increase in households below the ALICE Threshold were those with children. The number of ALICE and poverty-level households with children increased by 61 percent from 2007 to 2010. Married couples with children had the largest percentage increase yet single parent households still account for the greatest number.

ALICE and poverty-level households are spread across all counties in New Jersey. Half of New Jersey’s 566 municipalities have more than 30 percent of households with income below the ALICE Threshold. In all but six municipalities, at least 10 percent of households earn below the ALICE Threshold.

ALICE households mirror the population in terms of race/ethnicity. Like the total population in New Jersey, more than 70 percent of ALICE households are White (U.S. Census terms). However, wage discrepancies in earnings continue for women, Blacks, Hispanics, those living with a disability, and recent unskilled immigrants.

Read the entire report here and visit the United Way of Northern New Jersey’s website for more information.

A group of 76 signatories, including religious, civil rights, and community leaders, have called on New Jersey to change its plan for spending $1.8 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding. The diverse group urged the state to amend the plan prior to submitting it to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for review.

The requests made by the group include fairly analyzing housing needs and addressing the historic pattern of exclusion of lower-income families and persons of color from impacted communities. The letter, submitted to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), expresses concern that the relief plan is based on a flawed analysis of data related to who was impacted by the storm. It also stated that the draft plan “needs to be revised to make it clear that racial and economic diversity should be a part of rebuilding in all communities.” The group also urged the state to focus more on the needs of people with special needs and the homeless and to emphasize sustainability in the rebuilding process.

“The plan the administration put out is not fair,” said James Harris, President of the NJ State Conference of the NAACP. “It fails to meet the needs of renters, who happen to be disproportionately Black and Latino. It does not do enough to protect civil rights. We need this money to get out the door soon and can’t afford the state submitting a plan that will be delayed because it is flawed.”

“Working families who were renting and people who are unemployed are really struggling,” said Reverend Collins A. Days, Sr. of Second Baptist Church in Atlantic City. “We need to make sure they get help. Most of the programs are ‘first come, first served,’ which means that the people who are first in line because they don’t have to go to work will get priority, not those with the greatest needs.”

“The DCA plan lays a good foundation, but our members helping folks get back on their feet see where enhancements can be made,” said Staci Berger, director of Policy and Advocacy for the Network. “It needs specifics about how programs will be delivered so that precious funding dollars are spent efficiently and effectively for all. Bruce Springsteen said, ‘At the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.’ Everyone affected by the storm, homeowners and renters alike, believe they should have an equal opportunity at rebuilding and they deserve it.”

The group calls on DCA to identify a uniform program design, as well as a network of organizations able to assist. Turning existing, on-the-ground capacity into a connected, effective delivery system would be quicker and more cost effective than building new mechanisms within state government for this purpose.

The group of clergy, civil rights leaders, and housing and planning advocates urged the state government to ensure there is transparency, an opportunity for public participation, and an expeditious use of funds to help those with the greatest needs.

The letter sent by the group of 76 signatories is available here Letters submitted by Fair Share Housing Center and the Housing and Community Development Network of NJ are available here and here.

The State’s Sandy relief action plan, released today, leaves many of the people hardest hit by Sandy out in the cold.

“80 percent of the lowest income people impacted by Sandy are renters. Yet only 20 percent of the people covered by the State’s proposed plan are renters,” Fair Share Housing Center Associate Director Kevin D. Walsh said. “Fewer than one out of every twenty renters who registered with FEMA would be helped through the state’s plan.”

According to a report released by Enterprise Community Partners last week analyzing FEMA data, 108,200 renters were impacted by Sandy. Of those, 67% earned less than $30,000 per year. Yet the State’s plan only will help about 5,000 renters, while helping four times as many homeowners. The plan only allocates $254 million to rental housing, while allocating $825 million to homeowners.

“We have serious concerns about whether this plan fairly meets the needs of everyone impacted by Sandy,” Walsh added. “We look forward to reviewing the plan in more detail and working to resolve these concerns to make sure that rebuilding after Sandy is fair.”

The state’s plan is available here. More information about the impact on lower-income renters and the Enterprise report are available on our blog.

“The largest group of New Jerseyans impacted by Sandy are renters earning under $30,000 per year,” Adam Gordon, Fair Share Housing Center staff attorney, said. “Governor Christie has said that he wants to focus billions of federal funds on homeowners, small businesses, and shore tourism - but he shouldn’t ignore the largest group of people impacted by Sandy.”

The reports are based on data recently released by FEMA that for the first time shows the income levels and housing status of all people impacted by the storm. The reports found that 42.5 percent of people impacted by the storm are renters - significantly more than the state’s overall population. And of those renters, 41 percent earn less than $15,000 per year and 67 percent earn less than $30,000 per year - a higher share of lower income renters impacted than either New York City or New York State.

“From Ocean City to Toms River to Hoboken, lower-income renters struggle to meet their bills in low-wage jobs serving the wealthier communities around them,” Gordon said. “They have often faced local governments hostile to allowing modestly priced apartments and homes that they can afford, which has driven up housing prices for everyone. The data show that unless rebuilding is fair, lower-income people devastated by Sandy will be forced to live further and further from their jobs and communities.”

The Enterprise report also found significant impacts on New Jersey’s communities of color, particularly among renters. Of renters impacted, 25% are Hispanic, 23% are African-American, and 8% are Asian-American.

The report also highlights key communities impacted. Even communities such as Toms River and Seaside Heights that are not typically seen as lower-income have substantial numbers of lower-income renters - 57% of impacted renters in Toms River and 77% of impacted renters in Seaside Heights earn below $30,000 per year.

The Enterprise Report is available here. The NYU Furman Center Report is available here.