Civil rights leaders call for wealthy municipalities to stop pretending working poor don't exist
CHERRY HILL - Civil rights leaders are fighting back against a new
report commissioned by more than 200 towns across New Jersey that
undercounts the pressing housing needs of low-income families, people
with disabilities, and people of color. These towns are pursuing
policies of exclusion while simultaneously attempting to hide a second
publicly funded study that apparently shows far greater housing needs.
Towns, in the report they chose to release, relied on
demonstrably false assumptions and legal trickery to make tens of
thousands of working families, seniors and those with disabilities
disappear. Their approach would disproportionately impact
African-Americans and Latinos living in one of the nation's most
segregated states.
"We have to name exclusion for what it
is," said Mike McNeil, Housing Chairman of the New Jersey NAACP. "These
mayors believe in Jim Crow. They're like Governor Wallace standing in
the schoolhouse door against integration. These mayors are
overwhelmingly standing on their borders saying people of color aren't
welcome in their neighborhoods. We have been fighting this mindset since
the 1960s. As long as there is racism and as long as there are people
who want to keep us out, we'll keep on fighting. One day we will win
this fight."
McNeil was joined by Latino Action Network
President Frank Argote-Freyre, who called on the state's judges to
protect the constitutional rights of New Jerseyans by holding towns
accountable to New Jersey's fair housing laws.
"This
report is an attack on the civil rights of tens of thousands of Latino
and African-American families," Argote-Freyre said. "If mayors across
New Jersey refuse to do the right thing, we are going to have to force
them to through the courts. New Jersey can be better than this and is
better than this - but it is going to take continued work to overcome
their discrimination."
This housing study is the latest in
a long series of attempts by municipal officials to disregard the
orders of the New Jersey Supreme Court and to evade the Mount Laurel
Doctrine, the principle embedded in the state Constitution requiring
that municipalities do their fair share to provide affordable housing
opportunities to New Jersey families.
Municipal officials
are also trying to hide an earlier housing study conducted by Rutgers
University. Although Rutgers distributed a report to more than 200
municipalities, these towns are now going to court to fight against that
report becoming public - likely because the report shows that the
actual need for homes is greater than municipalities want to admit.
After
stopping work with Rutgers, municipalities hired Philadelphia-based
Econsult Solutions Inc. to come up with an alternative report, which is
now being released as part of ongoing litigation involving municipal
housing responsibilities.
The report differs strongly with a study by noted planner Dr. David N. Kinsey released in July,
which found that New Jersey families need more than 200,000 additional
affordable homes to combat the growing pressures of high property
values, an ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis and the effects of
Superstorm Sandy and a wave of casino closings that have left thousands
jobless. This would meet the state's housing need from 1999 through
2025.
By contrast, this report, commissioned by a
consortium of 200 towns that have banded together to fight inclusion,
found that New Jersey families needed only 36,494 units of housing over
the same 25-year period. Towns are hoping to use this report to water
down their obligations in a series of fair housing lawsuits taking place
throughout the state that provide a once in a generation opportunity
for New Jersey families waiting for quality affordable homes.
"This
report is the newest statement from wealthy towns that they want to
exclude people who aren't wealthy. They want to keep school kids out,
too," Fair Share Housing Center Executive Director Kevin Walsh
said. "This is why homes in New Jersey cost so much. If you don't drive
a BMW or Mercedes, you're not welcome in much of New Jersey. If your
house doesn't have granite countertops, you're not welcome. We have
laws to stop this sort of discrimination, and we are hoping judges will
identify what the towns have submitted for what it is."
The
report relies on a series of gimmicks to effectively pretend that tens
of thousands of working families, seniors and those with disabilities
don't exist as a way of artificially reducing housing need.
First,
it argues that New Jersey municipalities shouldn't have to meet the
state's housing need from 1999 through 2015 - a time when political
gridlock in Trenton kept the state's housing laws from functioning
properly. This flies in the face of the law and contradicts arguments
that the New Jersey League of Municipalities made in an earlier court
case, when attorneys for the League confirmed that municipal need for
that period of time could not be made to disappear.
"This
proposal is so absurd, even the state League of Municipalities rejected
that approach in court years ago," Walsh said. "The report flies in the
face of common sense. Anyone who has ever been to New Jersey knows that
families need help now. That need didn't disappear just because of
political gridlock in Trenton. Towns are talking out of both sides of
their mouth, proving that some municipal officials will go to any
lengths to continue excluding New Jersey families."
Econsult's
latest report directly contradicts an earlier housing study the firm
performed for the state Council on Affordable Housing in 2008, which
found a statewide need of 116,000 homes, and found that the housing need
that accumulated up to that point did not disappear.
The
report also proposes a statewide need that is significantly less than
what was established in previous fair housing rounds. The Council on
Affordable Housing, for instance, determined that the state's need from
1987 through 1999 was approximately 85,000 homes. It beggars belief that
municipalities are now arguing that New Jersey has a need less than
half of that over a 25-year period.
In addition to this
report, the state League of Municipalities is proposing a dramatic
rewrite of New Jersey's housing policies to exclude the very poorest New
Jerseyans - those making under 20 percent of the regional area median
income - from housing.
This approach would also violate
state law and was first proposed by Econsult in an earlier report for
the League. It was rejected by the New Jersey Working Families Alliance
and the Supportive Housing Association of New Jersey
because it would disproportionately disenfranchise people with physical
and mental disabilities - many of whom rely on government help and
report very little income.
"Towns are engaged in a more
sophisticated form of discrimination - in which they got experts to say
black and Latino families and people with disabilities don't exist,"
Walsh said. "Municipal leaders want to ignore these people because they
think they're just not worth caring about."
Click here
to read a copy of the Appellate Division case in which the League of
Municipalities argued that housing need could not disappear.
