Need affordable housing, not a costly court battle PDF Print Email

Published March 16, 2012
By Beth Sidlow

Thank you for your editorial of March 13, “Don’t kill COAH; fix what ails it.”

Those of us who are concerned about the housing choices available to middle- and lower-income folks in this state are breathing a collective sigh of relief.

With you, we hope that Gov. Christie will spare taxpayers the expense of a costly appeal to the state Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the ruling against him as he overstepped his bounds to disband COAH.

We need to get to work quickly to provide homes that New Jerseyans can afford. We need to ensure that the governor does not take the $75 million the state will get from the Obama administration’s historic foreclosure settlement and the $225 million now sitting in municipal housing trust funds to plug the holes in his budget.

And let’s see the Legislature move on the Residential Foreclosure and Transformation Act (S-1566/A-2168), a bill that will allow foreclosure-impacted communities to leverage the above-mentioned funds so that community development organizations can put families into these vacant properties and get them back on the tax rolls.

Family Promise of Monmouth County, the county’s only shelter for homeless families, is at capacity with five families, 14 children and adults, who are trying to save enough money to make a security deposit and first month’s rent. Every day that I am there, I complete at least one telephone assessment for another family who goes on its waiting list.

Every night in Monmouth County, more than 200 children are homeless. The main reason: Housing is just too costly!

I, for one, do not want to see my tax dollars going to fight a losing court battle. Let’s use them to fill empty homes with the people who need them most.

Elizabeth Sidlow

Monmouth Advocacy Team Housing and Community Development Network of N.J.