This week, housing leaders from across New Jersey will gather for the Governor’s Conference on Housing and Economic Development to talk about affordability, access, and how to build more housing, faster.
Those are the right conversations to have. But I want to add a question to the agenda: Can the families who need affordable housing actually qualify to live in it?
At the Urban League of Essex County, we deal with that question every day, and too often the answer is no.
Recently, a working mother of three came to us after her husband walked out on the family. She has a steady job. She cannot afford market rent. Right now, she and her children are staying with her sister because they have nowhere else to go.
We have an affordable three-bedroom apartment available for $1,284 a month. On paper, it’s a perfect fit. In practice, she can’t have it.
Under New Jersey’s affordability guidelines, housing costs generally should not exceed 35 percent of a household’s income. For this mother, the apartment would take about 37 percent. She misses the cutoff by roughly $69 a month.
Public money helped build that apartment for families like hers. She needs it; her children need it, and $69 is keeping them out.
Meanwhile, three-bedroom apartments in Newark routinely rent for $2,100 to $2,250 a month. At her income, that’s 60 to 65 percent of her pay. So, the rules tell her the $1,284 apartment costs too much, and the only other option costs $800 to $1,000 more. I don’t know how anyone can call that affordability.
Her situation isn’t unusual. The numbers make sure of that.
New Jersey’s minimum wage is $15.92 an hour, which works out to about $33,100 a year for full-time work. Using the 35 percent standard, that worker can afford about $966 a month in rent. To qualify for our $1,284 apartment, a household needs to earn around $44,000. A full-time minimum-wage worker in this state can’t qualify for this affordable unit, and this mother, who earns thousands more than minimum wage, still comes up short.
Income is only one hurdle. A family’s history can be another.
When there isn’t enough money to go around, people make hard choices every month: pay the rent or the electric bill, fix the car they need to get to work or make the credit card payment. Miss enough payments and your credit score drops. Fall behind on rent after a layoff, an illness or a divorce, and you may end up with an eviction on your record.
That record can follow a family for years. It can keep them out of one apartment after another, including the affordable housing that was built for people who have been through exactly these kinds of crises.
It’s easy to look at a low credit score or an eviction and assume the person was careless. In our experience, it usually means they were struggling to stay afloat.
People can and do recover. At the Urban League’s Financial Opportunity Center, we work with families to repair credit, pay down debt and build savings. We teach renters how to budget for housing, read and understand a lease, and keep their tenancy in good standing. But most screening criteria give no credit for any of this. A single bad stretch can outweigh years of effort to put things right.
Families who do this work deserve a second chance. If an applicant has a job, can pay an adjusted rent, and is following a documented plan with a financial counselor, that should count in their favor. If a family with a past eviction has completed renter education and is working with a housing counselor, landlords and housing programs should be able to take that into account, and should be encouraged to.
Stable housing makes financial recovery possible. It’s very hard to rebuild your credit sleeping on a relative’s couch or spending 60% of your income on rent.
New Jersey does allow some flexibility within its rules. But if that flexibility can’t reach a working mother who is $69 short, or a family that has done the work to move past an eviction, it needs to go further. Families shouldn’t have to count on an exception to get housed.
Instead, our system starts with formulas: Area Median Income, income bands, affordability ratios, credit thresholds, eviction screens. We build the unit first, then search for a family whose life fits every box.
Real families rarely line up that neatly. Spouses die. Grandmothers take in grandchildren. A small raise pushes a worker over an income limit while leaving them nowhere near able to afford market rent. Our policies need room for that.
As the housing community meets this week, I hope we’ll take up a few concrete changes. Let providers lower rents to reach families who otherwise qualify. Create a flexible state fund to cover small affordability gaps. Give applicants credit for financial counseling, credit repair and renter education. Offer a real second chance to families with past evictions who have done the work. And recognize that a stable home is often where financial health begins.
The mother who came to us is working, raising three children and doing what we ask of her. She shouldn’t be turned away over $69, and no family should be shut out for good because of the worst year it ever had.
When the rules produce that kind of outcome, it’s time to take a hard look at the rules.
If our affordable housing system produces those results, the problem is not the family.
It is the formula. And we have the power to change it.
Vivian Cox Fraser, is the CEO of the Urban League of Essex Count
