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NEW JERSEY HOUSING & JOBS INITIATIVE

The New Jersey Housing & Jobs Initiative is a comprehensive approach to addressing New Jersey's housing and economic problems at the core. The Initiative is being implemented through a proposed $290-million general-obligation bond issue to appear on the ballot in November, 1996. The Jobs from Housing and Economic Development Bond Act [A-3062 & A-3063 (Kelly/Doria) and S-2195 & S-2226 (Singer/Lynch)] has five components:

1. $160 million in funding to be administered by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to establish an Affordable Housing Development Fund. The Fund will provide loans, loan guarantees, grants, or other forms of assistance to help build or rehabilitate housing units affordable to low- and moderate-income households. At an average of $35,000 per unit this would enable the creation or preservation of at least 4,500 units of housing for rental and homeownership, including a significant number of barrier-free units. At least half of the units assisted each year will be affordable to low-income households and at least half will be rentals. This Fund will supplement the state's successful, yet underfunded, Balanced Housing Program.
2. $50 million in funding to be administered by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs through the Affordable Housing Development Fund as project-based rental assistance. This will enable at least 20 percent of the units created each year through the Affordable Housing Development Fund (or approximately 900 units total) to be affordable to very low income households (e.g. those earning below 30 percent of area median income).
3. $30 million in funding to be administered by the New Jersey Housing & Mortgage Finance Agency to establish a Homeownership Fund. This Fund will help nearly 4,300 homebuyers purchase their first home by providing loans and grants at an average of $7,000 per unit for downpayment and closing cost assistance. One-third of the households assisted each year will be low moderate and middle income respectively. The state previously administered a similar program which was much in demand, but is currently out of funds.
4. $41 million in funding to be administered by the New Jersey Urban Development Corporation to establish an Economic Development Fund. This Fund will provide loans, investments, and other forms of assistance to help capitalize job creation and small business ventures, develop commercial space, and support technical assistance, and entrepreneurial training programs in urban and other low-income areas of the state. This Fund will enable the expansion of existing economic development programs operated by the state to additional low-income areas.
5. $9 million in funding to be administered by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to establish a Nonprofit Financial Assistance Fund. This Fund will enable approximately forty nonprofit housing development corporations to expand their affordable housing production capacity and twenty community economic development corporations to foster the creation or expansion of small businesses and employment by providing average grants of $50,000 for three years to augment staff and access professional resources. Thirty-two of New Jersey's more than 150 nonprofit housing groups now receive such support from the Department of Community Affairs' Performance Grant Program and the federal HOME program, and as a result have been able to significantly build their development capacity.