[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're joined once again by our housing expert, Staci Berger, who's President and CEO of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

Good to see you, my friend.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

It's always great to be with you.

- Now, Staci, I love having you too, but I asked you right before we got on, Staci, we've talked about affordable housing in New Jersey for years together.

- We have.

- You're the best.

Are we making any progress?

And if so, prove it.

- Well, we are definitely making progress because we finally have a program that everybody, with the exception of just a handful of towns agrees, is working for the state of New Jersey.

- What is it?

- We have, well, the legislature just adopted last year A4S50 which gives towns the opportunity to evaluate what their affordable housing number is gonna look like and what their obligation is and how they're gonna get there.

And those plans are due at the end of this month, and then it is game on.

We are seeing developments be approved and be built, and we know that we have an enormous need in New Jersey, and we finally have a process by which we are going to meet that need.

I've been in this role for a long time, and I have never been as optimistic as I am right now about the ability of our state and our community and our development partners to meet the needs of New Jersey residents.

It is a, it's going to take a little time, but those units are going to come to the communities that need them most.

- You know, Staci, you told our producers, and you said this publicly that we have enough luxury housing.

- We sure do.

- We don't, But what don't we have enough of?

- We don't have enough starter homes.

We don't have enough family-sized apartments.

We don't have enough places that people can afford without enormous burdens and hoops, bureaucratic hoops of applying over and over and over again, paying the same administrative fee to a landlord, for example, and then not getting an apartment.

So we need a little more regulation and a little more oversight or a lot more oversight on the rental market to make sure that people are not being taken advantage of and that unscrupulous landlords aren't using renters as an ATM.

But we are seeing at least in the development side, the increase in the ability of community developers, municipalities, for-profit folks to get in the game and make those homes happen.

- So, Staci, we're gonna have, I keep saying this so folks, I'm not gonna apologize for reminding you because you got a lot of things on your mind.

But we are gonna have both candidates for governor and in depth policy conversations.

Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican, Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat, and housing, affordable housing will be part of it.

And state policy as it relates to, and the governor's role as it relates to housing is critical.

What is the most significant action our new governor, be it Mikie Sherrill, Jack Ciattarelli in January 2026, when that governor takes office, what's the most significant action they need to take as it relates to improving the housing crisis in the state?

- They need to make sure that the programs and policies that are already happening here have sufficient resources.

We have great programs.

They are underfunded and not always protected.

So for example, our top priority in this budget cycle, and we believe going forward is the preservation of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

You and I have talked about that before.

There is a lot of money in it right now.

We need to make sure that that money stays there so that organizations can use it to build the homes that they've committed to building with municipalities.

So Habitat for Humanity, a number of our other members who are partnering with municipalities around the state need to know that those resources are gonna be there tomorrow.

But also six months from now and six years from now.

There are lots of great programs that have come online in the last few years, including a fantastic first generation and first time home ownership down payment program.

But that money should come from not the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

We believe it should come from an increase in the realty transfer fee so that those funds are stable and dependable for developers on the one hand who use that funding from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

But that folks who are trying to buy a home for the first time, whether it's first generation homeowners or first time homeowners, have a dedicated set of resources.

We also need to increase and stabilize rental assistance.

Right now we have many more people who need rental assistance.

- What does that, hold on, rental assistance for whom?

And how much?

- For, it depends on the, it depends on where folks live, the size of their family and what their rent is.

It's a slightly complicated formula, but it usually helps folks keep their housing costs at or below 30% of their income.

And so it would be for lower and moderate income families.

We have a backlog of folks who are waiting to get that assistance.

There's some from the federal government.

It is not enough.

People incorrectly believe that everyone who needs rental assistance gets it, and that is just not true.

And the last program, it's just not, it's not a universal rental assistance program at the federal level or the state level.

And the last program that I would say really needs a commitment from our gubernatorial candidates is the eviction diversion program, which.

- Hold on, slow down, the eviction diversion program.

What the heck is that?

- That keeps people out of eviction court.

It keeps people from being evicted.

Instead of just a landlord filing for eviction and kicking somebody out and creating a whole chain of homelessness issues, which we probably have, we probably don't have time to talk about that today.

- Staci, do we have a homeless, a crisis of those who are homeless?

- Absolutely, we have a homeless crisis, and it's continued to become worse because the Supreme Court allowed communities to make homelessness a crime, which is shameful in 2025 that that is something that anybody would do.

- Yeah, but it’s only a crime if a community establishes that as a crime.

It's not a crime in and of itself because the Supreme Court said that.

- Oh no, and we think that the Supreme Court was wrong and that it's not a crime and that nobody should, nobody is illegal and nobody should be penalized or criminalized for not having a place to live.

But Townsend, New Jersey are looking at ways to do that.

And that is, that is both preventable and incredibly wasteful use of municipal resources.

So keeping people out of homelessness, the easiest way to do that is keep them in the place that they're currently living, and we can do that if we have eviction diversion resources, we have run out right of those resources at this point, and we need to make sure that there are enough for folks who need them.

- Staci, before I let you outta here, the energy prices going up, utility rates, connect that to housing.

Got a minute left.

- Sure, so, you know when people can't afford their utility rates, maybe they, maybe they don't pay their full amount of their rent or maybe they don't take all their medication.

We know that it is incredibly difficult for people who are facing hard choices like that to keep the lights on, keep the heat on.

And in this case, it's gonna be difficult for folks to keep their air conditioning and medical devices happening during the summer when power prices are expected to go up.

We are heartened by Senator Timberlake's recent legislation that she submitted to control power costs, as well as some of the steps that the Murphy administration and the Board of Public Utilities are taking to expand utility assistance through the Universal Service Fund and LIHEAP, which Congress is threatening.

So that's a whole other other show we could do.

- Okay, you make reference to Senator Britnee Timberlake.

- Correct.

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

Staci, thank you for joining us.

As always, we appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

Great to be here.

- 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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