Menendez, Booker Applaud New Investment in Affordable Housing Opportunities for Lowest Income Families

NEWARK, N.J. – (RealEstateRama) — U.S. Senators Bob Menendez, Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, and Cory Booker applauded the announcement today by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that the Housing Trust Fund is providing more than $3.7 million to New Jersey to help increase the supply of safe, affordable housing available for the state’s lowest income families. This is the first new source of federal funding in more than four decades dedicated to expanding affordable rental housing opportunities for extremely low income households.

“The fact is, in today’s housing market, too many working families are struggling to find housing that’s not just safe and decent, but that’s affordable,” said Sen. Menendez. “Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction and I urge the State to work closely with our local partners to put these funds to work – creating the affordable housing our most distressed communities and families need.”

“Federal grants like this offer much needed assistance to our most vulnerable populations by helping ensure families have the decency of safe and affordable housing,” said Sen. Booker. “I applaud HUD for making federal funds like this available for our states to address the affordable housing crisis facing our nation, which is the key to bolstering our economic growth and strengthening our neighborhoods.”

“Almost one-third of NJ renters are paying over half of their income for their homes,” said Staci Berger, president and chief executive officer of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey. “These funds will help create more opportunities for our residents who are having a tough time finding an affordable place to live and hopefully restore balance to our housing market.”

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, New Jersey has a significant shortage of units (191,401) that are affordable and available to extremely low income renters.

Menendez has long worked to increase the supply of affordable housing, especially for New Jersey’s lowest-income families. He co-sponsored the legislation that created the Housing Trust Fund which passed in 2008. In January of 2014, Menendez and Booker joined a letter to the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency calling on him to lift the suspension of contributions to the Housing Trust Fund. Last year, the Senators also urged appropriators to preserve the Trust Fund against any efforts by Republicans to eliminate it.

Eight years after it was authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), the Housing Trust Fund is only now being capitalized through contributions made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In December 2014, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) directed the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) to begin setting aside and allocating funds to the Housing Trust. In January of 2015, HUD issued interim rules to guide states on how to implement their Housing Trust Funds.

By law, each state is allocated a minimum of $3 million. State affordable housing planners will use these funds for the following eligible activities:

Real property acquisition
Site improvements and development hard costs
Related soft costs
Demolition
Financing costs
Relocation assistance
Operating cost assistance for rental housing (up to 30% of each grant)
Reasonable administrative and planning costs

Press Contact
Steven_Sandberg (at) menendez.senate (dot) gov