30 years later, a Jersey City affordable housing program sparks controversy - nj.com

sumurbelakang.blogspot.com

Leonora Wright wants to move to Florida.

The 82-year-old Jersey City resident, who suffers from arthritis and sciatic nerve pain, can no longer climb the stairs in her two-story Bergen-Lafayette home. She dreams of moving to Orlando, where she has family.

“I want to get out of the cold and go and live by my sister,” Wright said.

But even though she owns property in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, she can’t afford to move out. That’s because, when she bought her home nearly 30 years ago through a Jersey City affordable housing program, she had to agree to forfeit a big chunk of the profits if she sold it.

A Jersey City spokeswoman said those conditions — which are not unusual in affordable developments — have made homeownership accessible to hundreds of low-income residents.

But critics say it has locked out buyers, many of whom are Black and Brown, from the financial benefits of owning a house.

“The model is not going to get people out of poverty,” said Venus Smith, a Jersey City realtor who has started a petition to end the program. “It’s actually plummeting them back into poverty in their senior years.”

Wright’s case dates back to the mid-1990s, when the city contracted with nonprofit affordable housing developers to build homes in Bergen-Lafayette. With funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city sold those homes to low-income residents for cheap.

Wright bought her house in 1993 for $78,900. She had moved to Jersey City from Panama seven years prior with her daughter, who still lives with her.

City officials told her that there was no need for her to hire an attorney for the sale, she said, and she did not even receive a copy of the contract until a year later. Two days after she moved in, stray bullets came through her window, she said. But she was still happy to be a homeowner.

“You know, when you don’t have money, you love anything you get,” she said.

The homes in the program were designated affordable housing for 20 years, meaning that they could only be sold or rented at set prices to low-income people. Once those 20 years were up, homeowners were free to sell the houses at market rate — but they could not keep all of the profits.

Under the terms of the deal, a seller could keep only a house’s “maximum restricted sale price” — effectively, the value the property would have if it were still designated affordable housing — plus 5% of the rest.

The other 95% would go to the city of Jersey City.

Wright said she only learned about those restrictions when she tried to sell her house six years ago. She had closed on a deal to sell it for $410,000 and had packed up all her belongings in preparation for her move to Florida, she said.

Then, she said, her attorney called her with news: because of the contract, she was entitled to only about half of that $410,000. The city would claim the rest.

Wright had to cancel the sale—and the move.

“I pay my tax, I pay my insurance, I pay my water, I do my own repair,” she said. “So I don’t see why I have to give them half of what I get.”

From the city’s perspective, the program is working as planned. Low-income residents are guaranteed a place to live for two decades, and “benefit tremendously above the rate of inflation” when they sell, city spokeswoman Kim Wallace-Scalcione said. She noted that all homebuyers agreed to the terms in the contracts.

According to New Jersey Department of Community Affairs documents, the “95/5 Rule” is common practice in affordable developments statewide. There are hundreds of such homes in Jersey City, Wallace-Scalcione said.

Plus, the city’s share of the sales goes into its Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Wallace-Scalcione said, which allows other low-income residents to “have access to the same funds and the same benefits as these residents did.”

But critics say that it prevents participants —many of whom they say are people of color and immigrants — from benefiting from Jersey City’s sizzling housing market.

June Jones, the president of the Morris Canal Redevelopment Area Community Development Corporation and an at-large candidate for city council, said the program keeps people in “perpetual poverty.”

“Part of being a homeowner is being able to invest and make an investment in growth,” Jones said. “Right now, the real estate market is booming. Why shouldn’t a low-income person who is a homeowner benefit from that too?”

Smith noted that, now that the 20-year contracts have expired, anyone is free to buy the houses. The people able to afford them, she said, are “not going to be the Black and Brown people.”

In the end, “exactly what they said they were trying to avoid is going to happen,” she said. “Only wealthy people are going to be able to buy in that area.”

Eugene O’Connell, an attorney for the nonprofit developer that built Wright’s home, said he’s heard complaints from many homeowners in the program.

He’s concerned that the 95/5 Rule was not implemented consistently: Some homeowners are in situations like Wright’s, while others “are holding property for 15 years and selling it for whatever they want,” O’Connell said.

“I’ve written (the city) many, many letters because I think there’s a sense of unfairness to me on this, too,” he said.

But any changes to Wright’s contract, or others like it, would endanger Jersey City’s affordable housing goals, city spokeswoman Wallace-Scalcione said.

“If the city were to allow one resident to change a contractual agreement, then the city would need to do this for every similar situation citywide,” she said, “which would essentially mean that hundreds of new affordable units would not get built.”

In Bergen-Lafayette, many of Wright’s belongings are still in boxes, packed for a move that may never happen. She has been sleeping in her living room to avoid climbing her stairs.

“I’m stuck here,” she said.

Adblock test (Why?)

"later" - Google News
July 11, 2021 at 09:55PM
https://ift.tt/3k90FQf

30 years later, a Jersey City affordable housing program sparks controversy - nj.com
"later" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2KR2wq4


Bagikan Berita Ini