Published: November 11, 2011

By Michael Daigle

The details always get lost in the shouting, the facts blown away in the Hatfields-and-McCoys din of loud questions and louder replies.

And in a lingering slow economy, the human equation is drowned in the wave of incomprehensible events and news.

Earthquakes and tsunamis. China, Italy, Greece. Failure of the Eurozone. Gas prices. Tornados, Irene, floods, snowstorms—JCP&L. The debt ceiling, government shutdown. Iraq, Afghanistan. Somali pirates. Toll hikes, Tax breaks, millionaire taxes, pensions; class warfare; health care reform. Asteroids cruising between the earth and moon at a billion miles an hour.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

So we find refuge in those things that make the most sense to us and question why it seems that everyone else is getting a break. And when the noise becomes too loud, we stop listening.

Freeholder Ann Grossi, a Parsippany Republican, said Thursday she understands.

She would hear how there were many families in need in Morris County, one of the richest places in the country, and scoff.

"I was a skeptic," Grossi said.

Then she was elected to the Morris County freeholder board and began to understand the scope of the need for solid assistance programs, she said.

She said that realization was reinforced this week when she read a news story about the "hidden homeless," families or individuals who have no place to live but perhaps with a relative or a friend—people who were looking for new shelter because their homes had been damaged by the August flood or they lost power for days in the Halloween snowstorm.

That makes it real, she said.

    Each day this week, Patch examines the lives of those whose economic truths are hidden by statistics that say Morris County's a place for the rich and comfortable, in "Morris' Working Class."

"We simply must act with a social conscious," Grossi said. "We must take care of those who are among the have-nots."

She said she could seek refuge with friends or family if a disaster struck, but many don't have an option. Those are the ones who society must be ready to help, she said.

Morris Township Deputy Mayor Bruce Sisler said he understands why there is concern about government spending.

"People are scared," he said.

They are worried about their jobs, he said, in a time when the county's unemployment rate has doubled in two years and still sits at 6.8 percent, nearly twice the traditional range.

There is a lot of uncertainty, and people worry about taking care of themselves, he said.

Sisler took part in public budget hearings in 2010 as the township committee faced a $3.5 million budget gap and was forced to cut employees and trim hours for others.

The hearings brought out the rawness that is created when the seemingly diametric concerns about taxes and people rub together.

Grossi and Sisler Thursday attended an event at which Morris County affordable housing developers and other called for the U.S. Congress to restore the cuts to the HOME funding program of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Arnold Cohen, policy coordinator for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, said the House of Representatives is proposing a 25 percent cut in funding, and the Senate, a 28 percent cut. Those cuts follow a reduction in the last federal budget of $220 million to $1.6 million.

Cohen said HOME funds are effective in the development of affordable housing, are administered efficiently, and because they draw in other investments to complete the projects, stimulate economic activity.

Sabine VonAulock, director of the Morris County Division of Community Development, said that since 1992, the county has received $13.4 million in HOME funds that were matched by investments of $45 million to develop affordable housing.

The funds developed more than 550 housing units for seniors, first-time homebuyers, people escaping homelessness, domestic-abuse survivors and those with physical or mental special needs, she said.

There may be no political issue in New Jersey that causes so many loud debates as affordable housing. It is either the cause of suburban sprawl, school overcrowding and higher taxes, or the underfunded housing relief program for working class residents.

In an era of high local property taxes, the school population issue is easy to pin on the construction of affordable housing.

But a Rutgers University study of housing build under the rules generated by the Council on Affordable Housing, the former state agency that oversaw the state's program (the council was eliminated in August), showed that the affordable units built under those rules were not the cause of a rise in the number of school-aged children. Instead, the new children lived in the market rate housing, the three-, four-, or five-bedroom homes, built to offset costs of constructing the affordable housing units.

The 2006 quick guide of housing multipliers done by the Center for Urban Policy Research said that 100 three-bedroom detached homes would have 58 children, 48 of whom could be expected to attend public school. One hundred two-bedroom attached condminiums would have 12 children, 10 of whom could attend public school.

In a common affordable housing scenario in an urbanized area, 100 three-bedroom market units could have 10 to 70 children, while 100 typical two-bedroom affordable units would have two children, the report said.

Sisler said that even though Morris Township residents were concerned about the recent economy, they appreciated and welcomed the affordable housing units that have been constructed.

The group met at the Jean Street apartments, a transitional housing complex opened by Homeless Solutions in 1996.

Sisler said the Jean Street apartments are an attractive and green energy-efficient addition to the township that serve a population earning between $15,000 to $28,000 annually.

Elizabeth Hall, executive director of Homeless Solutions said many who argue against spending government funds—tax dollars—for such efforts as affordable housing don't see the bigger picture. She said in a time of auserity, making smaller cuts to all funding streams would be a balanced way to solve a budget problem, rather than attacking the funding of a certain segment of programs. She said she was reminded of that during a meeting in Trenton.

She was told about a 66-year-old grandmother who was taking care of her 8-year-old granddaughter. They were homeless, Hall said.

HOME funds are the type of financing that could build a home for that woman and girl, Hall said.

The alternative, Hall said, is that the grandmother loses the child to the state Division of Youth and Family Services and state's taxpayers face a bill for potentially 10 years of foster care.