[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're now joined by Staci Berger, President & CEO of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

The website will be up.

Staci, good to see you again.

- Thanks so much for having me, Steve.

It's great to be with you, as always.

- You got it.

Do we have a "housing crisis," and if so, describe what it looks like, and most importantly, who's impacted?

- So we absolutely have a housing crisis around the country, and here in New Jersey, everyone is impacted, because when folks don't have enough places to live in the community in which they currently reside, or they want their children to move home and live in the same community that they grew up in, there just simply are not enough places that people can afford.

We've seen enormous rent increases, 5% increase in the rate of eviction, and we know that people are struggling to make ends meet, and so when that happens, the pressure on folks, especially people earning at the lowest wages, becomes really critical.

- So I happen to live in a great town, Montclair, New Jersey.

A lot of development going on, a lot of folks coming in from Brooklyn, and I don't mean, Brooklyn shouldn't be in quotes, it's Brooklyn, and the west side of Manhattan.

People with bucks, they're moving into homes, new places, new developments, and I keep asking myself, what happens to the folks who can't afford those places, where do they go?

And I don't just, Montclair is really a metaphor for so many other communities that are doing well financially, a lot of economic development activity, but pricing people simply out of the market.

- There are definitely areas where people who live there cannot afford to purchase a home for themselves, their children, their families.

- People born and raised, spent their whole lives here, now they can't afford to be here.

- Well, whether they came here from somewhere else or they spent their whole lives here, we need to have a strong economy that works for everyone, and that only happens when everyone has a safe, affordable place to live.

So whether it's somebody moving here or somebody coming here from another country or another part of the United States, or folks who've just lived here for a long time maybe their whole lives, we need to have a system that protects people from rent gouging, which we have seen an enormous amount of.

The more folks who are evicted or forced out of the rental market into our homelessness system, which, you know, is doing the best that it can under very difficult circumstances.

We've seen some data very recently that said it's getting a tiny bit better, but we know we can do more for our most vulnerable neighbors, and those things include making sure that we have a cap on what landlords can charge for egregious rent increases.

We're seeing things like 10, 15, 20%, that needs to stop.

We need to make sure that our lending institutions are creating the kind of mortgage products that folks can utilize in the neighborhoods in which those banks take deposits.

So I hope we're gonna talk about the Community Reinvestment Act announcement.

- Yeah, let's talk about it right away.

The Community Reinvestment Act is a federal act that says that banks must be engaged and be supportive of community development efforts, or there are problems for that bank, talk about it.

- Sure, so there was just a, the federal government just released the revised final rule for the Community Reinvestment Act, which as you said, requires lenders, banks, and financial institutions to make loans in the places where they take deposits.

It's a pretty simple and elegant solution, but we think it can be even stronger.

The new rule is of a huge step forward from the original proposal under the former administration, former federal administration.

This rule goes a lot further in making sure that we can hold banks accountable.

We just recently had a major announcement with TD Bank where they're gonna set aside $2 billion, that's billion with a B, to invest in neighborhoods and communities in New Jersey and in low and moderate income renters and homeowners.

So there are some special mortgage products that folks can access if they earn at or below 80% of the area median income, and whether it's TD or it's another lending institution, every bank that does business in the state of New Jersey has to have some kind of program like that, so folks should ask for that.

And they should get HUD certified housing counseling, which is gonna make sure that they're eligible and qualified for a mortgage that they can afford.

- Two things, let's make sure we put up the website for the Housing Community Development Network of New Jersey, website will be up.

Can people get information and help and direction from your organization?

- Absolutely, they can go on our website, and they can also go to Housing Help NJ, which is a project we support with assistance from the Department of Community Affairs and the Pandemic Relief Fund.

That has information about eviction protection as well, and you can get there from our website, so that's fine.

- Staci, talk...

I don't like the word granular, otherwise known as relevant and real in people's lives, when a family is evicted, is the greatest impact on the children of that family?

- That's correct.

I mean, sure, children, in the United States, people assume that if you need housing support, you're going to get it because we have things like food support for people.

We don't have that for housing.

Only 25% of the folks who are actually qualified for and eligible for a housing choice voucher or what folks may refer to as Section 8, actually get that assistance, and in addition, once you've gotten that housing choice voucher, it's very difficult to actually find a place to rent.

So we have people who are holding onto those places because they're so difficult to get, and then we have folks who are trying really hard to make ends meet, many of them essential workers, frontline workers during the pandemic that we all celebrated, and then when push comes to shove and they need a little extra help or a little extra time, their landlords are moving them out very quickly because the rental market is so hot because our home ownership market is so constrained.

So all of those pieces of the rental and housing market are connected, and when someone is evicted and there are children in that family and in that household, it is traumatizing.

Those children are uprooted from their neighborhood.

They're often uprooted, usually from their school system.

Sometimes that's where folks get their food sources from.

We know our school districts are doing a very difficult job feeding and caring for many of the folks in their communities, so when that entire social system is uprooted, whether it's neighbors that look after that child, or teachers who care about that family, or a school that is helping to provide food support, that family goes into crisis, and it's terrifying, and it's scary, and it lasts forever for those children.

- You mentioned the pandemic, so I wanna do this real quick.

The pandemic relief efforts, the pandemic protections, if you will, for renters, is that gone?

- Most of it is gone, much of it is gone.

The key piece of the pandemic that Governor Murphy and the late wonderful Lieutenant Governor, Sheila Oliver, may she rest in peace, one of the things that they did that really put New Jersey above and beyond- - Well excuse me, the lieutenant governor was also head of the Department of Community Affairs- - Right, she was.

- Which regulates housing related issues.

- Correct.

- Go ahead, I'm sorry, Staci.

- No problem, yeah, some of us who've worked in the housing field for a long time just assume everybody knows that the lieutenant governor, former lieutenant governor, late lieutenant governor was also the DCA commissioner, so I apologize for that to your viewers, but yes, she was in charge of the Department of Community Affairs, and they did a tremendous number of great many things to keep people stable and safely housed, and one of the things they did with the legislature was prevent evictions during the height of the pandemic crisis.

And so not having those protections for tenants, especially tenants at risk of eviction as a result of the pandemic, really have put a very deep, they have made a very deep wound in our rental market and families.

- Staci Berger, every time she comes on, she helps us understand the significance of housing related issues and more importantly, those who are disproportionately and severely affected.

Staci is the President and CEO of Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

Good to see you, my friend.

We'll talk soon.

- Thank you for having me.

Thanks a lot - You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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