Published July 20, 2015
By Kathleen Lynn

Joquann Montgomery, 30, works as a security guard and is a member of the National Guard. His fiancée, LaRae Mayfield, 26, is a college student and nursing assistant.

But even with their several salaries, recent financial setbacks left the couple unable to pay the $1,350 monthly rent for their Paterson apartment for a time, putting them in danger of eviction.

"It's a struggle," Montgomery said. "It's a big struggle."

Mayfield, Montgomery and their three children are living a reality faced by many households in North Jersey and around the rest of the nation. As homeownership rates drop to their lowest levels in two decades — 63.7 percent, down from a peak above 69 percent in 2005 — there are more renters competing for apartments. And government support of affordable rentals has not kept up with the need. Moreover, while multifamily construction has jumped in New Jersey, especially along the Hudson River, most of the new rentals are aimed at the high end of the market.

As a result, the situation for low-income households, which was already difficult, has become even more dire in Bergen and Passaic counties.

Affording rent "is a very big issue here in Bergen County," said Debbie Nicholson, a case manager at the non-profit Greater Bergen Community Action Inc. in Hackensack, which serves low-income residents. She and other social-service professionals say it's not unusual to see households devoting 80 percent of their incomes to paying the rent, leaning on food stamps and food pantries to help feed their families.

"It's just very hard to put a roof over your family's heads at certain income levels," said Lynne Algrent, CEO of the Volunteer Center of Bergen County in Hackensack.

State and local officials in New Jersey have been wrangling with the issue of affordable housing for decades, since the Mount Laurel ruling, which said towns can't use zoning to exclude lower-income residents. But housing advocates say that after years of lawsuits, the state still doesn't have enough affordable housing. Under a recent court ruling, builders can now go directly to the courts if towns haven't shown they meet quotas for affordable housing.

Many lower-income tenants work several jobs to try to meet their rent. Asia Collins of Hackensack cleans office buildings, tends bar, and cares for young children to try to keep on top of her $1,500 monthly rent. Collins, a 45-year-old mother of four, also receives child support from the father of her two youngest children.

Even so, she recently fell behind on the rent payments. "I'm working all these different jobs and I'm still not caught up," said Collins, who is close to finishing her bachelor's degree in business management, which she hopes will help her earn a higher income.

The challenges faced by lower-income tenants have been highlighted in a new campaign by a Maryland-based non-profit called Enterprise Community Partners Inc., which recently profiled Montgomery and Mayfield on its website. The group says an estimated 11 million American households — including 343,325 in New Jersey — spend more than half their incomes on rent, well above the 30 percent maximum recommended level.

Almost 30 percent of Bergen County renters — 35,815 households — pay at least half their incomes for rent and utilities, according to Enterprise Community Partners. The figure is even higher in Passaic, where 28,771 households, or almost 39 percent of renters, pay half their incomes.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Low Income Housing Coalition said recently that to afford a two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey, a household would need to earn at least $25.17 an hour — three times the state's minimum wage. Bergen County's average rent is $1,671 while Passaic County's is $1,305, according to Reis Inc., a New York real estate research firm.

Among New Jersey's largest cities, Paterson has the highest share of heavily burdened renters, with 46 percent of renter households applying at least half their income toward rent and utilities, according to Enterprise Community Partners. For that reason, Paterson was a natural focus for the group's campaign to highlight rent burdens.

As part of its campaign, the group is sponsoring private appearances by musicians in the homes of renters. Grammy-winning soul singer Timothy Bloom recently played a private concert in Montgomery and Mayfield's three-bedroom apartment. (The concert can be viewed at makeroomusa.org.)

Montgomery and Mayfield, who live on the second floor of a two-family home, grew up in Paterson and have relatives in the city. Montgomery said that while the house has a nice yard, they rarely allow their children to play outside because of fears about gun violence.

"We try to do games in the house," Montgomery said.

They are determined to hold their family together — his 6-year-old son, her 6-year-old daughter and their 2-year-old son. Montgomery, who grew up without a father, has decided he'll take a different path with his children.

"I never really had a relationship with my father, and he lived a few blocks away," Montgomery said. "He'd come and say, 'I want to take you here and take you there,' and when the time came, I never did see him. My biggest thing now is that my children will never have to go through that."

But after they fell almost four months behind on the rent, the family thought the kids might have to live with their grandmother while Montgomery and Mayfield stayed with friends. Montgomery said he often was unable to sleep at night because of the financial stresses.

They were able to avoid eviction with the help of $3,400 in donations raised on a Crowdrise.com website through Enterprise Community Partners, and they feel a little more secure since Mayfield has gotten a job as a nursing aide.

"We don't have to worry about eviction; we can finally get a little bit ahead," said Montgomery.

The competition for good rentals has risen since the housing bust of 2008 and 2009, as 1.7 million more households nationwide have gone from owning to renting. In fact, this decade is on track to be the strongest period of renter growth in history — an "unprecedented surge in demand" since the housing bust, according to the Harvard housing center.

On the national level, the National Housing Trust Fund, which was established in 2008 and designed to focus mostly on the creation and preservation of rental housing for low-income households, is being supported by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The fund was supposed to be supplied with a small share of the revenues generated by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the mortgage giants, but payments from Fannie and Freddie were suspended after the federal government took them over in the 2008 financial crisis. The money is scheduled to start flowing into the fund next year, unless opponents in Congress stop it.

The Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey says a greater share of the state's revenues from the realty transfer fee, which is paid by property sellers, should be used on the construction of affordable housing. Arnold Cohen, of the network, said the state has collected more than $50 million annually from the fee in the last several years, but that almost none of it has been spent on affordable rental construction. Instead, according to Cohen, it was used for other housing programs, including rental assistance.

Email: [email protected] Twitter: @KathleenLynn3