Published: November 28, 2012
BY  MICHAEL LINHORST

Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu leaders pressed for more affordable housing at a rally in Trenton on Wednesday, arguing the state has a moral obligation to ensure its citizens can find affordable places to live.

“We know for a fact that people cannot address their basic needs without stable housing,” said the Rev. Deacon Christine McCloud, of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. “At the end of the day, we are all responsible for helping our neighbor.”

The religious leaders gathered at the State House for an annual Fighting Poverty with Faith rally — two weeks after the state Supreme Court heard arguments over the future of New Jersey’s affordable housing and a month after superstorm Sandy destroyed thousands of homes.

The storm intensified New Jersey’s affordable housing needs, and it highlighted the plight of people who can't find affordable places to live, speakers at the rally said.

Sandy destroyed or seriously damaged 30,000 homes and businesses, Governor Christie said Wednesday. Thousands of people were displaced by the storm, but the number of houses that are now uninhabitable was not available Wednesday.

With so many more people now looking for places to stay, New Jersey’s lack of available housing has attracted renewed attention in the aftermath of the storm, said the Rev. Sara Lilja, executive director of the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry of New Jersey.

“People now will be very much aware” of the problem, because storm victims are having difficulty finding available housing, Lilja said.

Even before the storm hit, New Jersey had a tight housing market and high prices.

“The affordable housing crisis is really a crisis of the market,” Arnold Cohen, of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, said at the rally. Demand for housing is high and the supply is limited, which pushes the price beyond what many people can afford, he said.

The federal government considers housing affordable if it costs a household no more than 30 percent of its annual income.

More than 570,000 New Jersey households — including nearly 55,000 in Bergen County and about 40,000 in Passaic County — spend more than that on their housing. An estimated 57 percent of Bergen County renters pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent. So do 78 percent of Passaic County renters, according to the Housing and Community Development Network.

The religious leaders and housing advocates urged the state and federal governments on Wednesday to do more to make affordable housing available. New funding and additional awareness of the problem would help, they said.

“We can’t do it alone,” Cohen said. “We need our state government; we need our federal government; we need financial institutions.”

Much of the funding intended to build affordable housing has been held up for months amid legal battles. In July, a court ruled that New Jersey towns had to give up a total of $200 million they had set aside for affording housing projects. Christie wanted to seize the money, which he was relying on to balance the state budget.

Earlier this month, the New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that rests on a technical issue regarding how the state calculates the amount of affordable housing required in each town. The court’s decision, which will be released before its term ends next year, could have wide ramifications over how much new housing is built.

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