Home Page, attendees listen to a speaker at the Affordable Housing Workshop May 22. Left, Connie Pascale of NJ Legal Services speaks on his experience as a housing advocate.

COURT HOUSE — Crystal Hamer, 27, has been searching in vain since 2006 for an affordable place to live in Cape May County while she works, goes to school, and raises her child here as a single parent.

She relocated to the county in 2006 and has been working several part-time jobs since, earning 50 credits toward a social work degree.

“I need a safe, affordable place to live and to work and to go to school,” she told people eager to hear about creating affordable housing options May 22 at a workshop at Atlantic Cape Community College Cape May campus.

Ruby Walker, of Court House, told attendees she is the mother of eight children, three of whom are grown and five of whom her husband and she adopted and she is still raising.

She came to the workshop dressed in her medical uniform, and her voice was quiet when she told her story.

Since her husband died two years ago, she has faced a multitude of challenges keeping a roof over her and her children’s heads.

She pays $2,200 a month in rent to live in a home she and her husband used to own, but which fell into foreclosure. One son is in college and two of her children receive social security, which helps financially, but not enough. She can’t get welfare or food stamps because she works full-time as a physical therapist aide, and she doesn’t have medical insurance.

“I don’t have any help,” she said.

About 25 people came to the workshop, sponsored by South Jersey Legal Services, to hear options for improving and creating more affordable housing options in the county.

The workshop attracted those interested in obtaining affordable housing and those interested in creating it.

Several ideas and initiatives were raised.

Daniel Auld, director of Bridges, a tax-exempt outreach program of the Great Commission Baptist Church, in Court House, is seeking assistance from the community to help repair and upgrade a home at 18 Swainton-Goshen Rd., to be used to house a family in need.

The building is structurally sound and has vinyl siding; it is landscaped and furnishings are available. The organization is seeking donations for materials, labor, or financial assistance, he said. They are also seeking help with plumbing, electrical, floor coverings, roofing, kitchen cabinets/appliances and bathroom fixtures.
Connie Pascale, Esq., vice president Legal Services of New Jersey, spoke to the group on “What can individuals and community groups do?”

He gave a brief background on the law relating to affordable housing in New Jersey but mostly focused upon his experience as a housing advocate in Toms River.

“Housing isn’t about units, it’s about people,” he said. “Mt. Laurel wasn’t about housing it was about people.”

Mt. Laurel was the court case in the late 1970s that outlawed housing discrimination and created a mandate for affordable housing in New Jersey. But the mechanism to do that created by the Legislature through the Coalition on Affordable Housing has not worked to create enough affordable housing, or create it where it’s most needed, according to advocates.

The principal driving factor is the builder’s remedy lawsuit. The threat of lawsuits from private developers is the incentive for town fathers and mothers to create appropriate zoning to enable affordable housing to be built in their municipalities.
But over the years, mechanisms in the law have enabled towns to effectively “buy-out” of their requirement of so many units through exchanges with neighboring towns.

These controversial “regional contribution agreements” have been used consistently by wealthy towns with a “not in my backyard” mentality to push off their affordable housing requirements buy selling them to Trenton, Newark, or areas that are more economically depressed.

Now, a bill pending in the Legislature sponsored by Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Assembly Bill 500, is moving, and would eliminate these agreements.

Housing, said Pascale, is such a pregnant issue because it has to do with our most basic needs.

“We don’t talk about housing because it’s too controversial,” he said.

It’s all about who lives near us, and about “knowing who we are.”

One of the most effective methods to advocate for and create affordable housing Pascale said he used in Toms River is a coalition called Clergy and People of Conscience for Toms River Workforce Housing.

They created a poster campaign aimed at educating the public about who it is who is need of affordable housing in their community. It’s home health aides, for example, he said, who take care of our aging parents; it’s the certified nurse’s assistant, who help us when we’re sick.

People like these cannot live near where they work, and are forced to commute, or else to pay exorbitant rents.

Likewise, in Cape May County, part-time seasonal workers often find it difficult or impossible to live near the resort where they make their living.

A follow-up meeting has been scheduled for those who attended to begin work on creating a continuum of affordable housing options here.

That meeting is set for May 29, at 5 p.m., at The Branches, Village Shops in Rio Grande.

The Branches is across the parking lot behind the Family Dollar store, fourth in from the corner of Vermont and 2nd Street.

Contact Avedissian at (609) 886-8600 Ext 27 or at: savedissian@cmcherald.com.

What Do You Need to Earn to Live Here?

LOWER TOWNSHIP — According to South Jersey Legal Services, if you live in Cape May County, you would need to earn $35,800 a year in order to afford a 2-bedroom apartment for which the Fair Market Rent is set at $895. That means you need a job that pays $17.21 per hour. If you have a job that pays minimum wage of $7.15 per hour, you would need to work 96 hours per week, 52 weeks per year in order to afford a 2-bedroom apartment in Cape May County. That’s equal to 2.4 full-time jobs.
When the annual housing wage needed for a 2-bedroom apartment for the state is $46,287, and for Cape May County is $35,800, housing is out of reach for all members of the workforce in Cape May County working in such jobs as:

Occupation Average Salary
Medical Assistants………………………………………$24,189
Accounting and Auditing Clerks …………………….…$32,175
Tellers………………………………………………….....$23,195
Police, Fire and Ambulance Dispatchers ……………..$24,433
Emergency Medical Techs & Paramedics……………$27,709
Teacher Assistants ……………………………………..$22,323
Hairstylists and Cosmetologists ……………………….$22,960
School Bus Drivers ………………………..…………...$24,216
Security Guards…………………………………………$24,729
Service Station Attendants …………………………….$15,616
Home Health Aides …………………………………….$23,497
Child Care Workers ……………………………………$17,610
Cooks, Restaurant………………………………………$24,911
Waiters and Waitresses ………………………………$23,670
Dishwashers ……………………………………………$16,146
Hostesses, Restaurant/Lounge……………………….$19,584
Food Preparation Workers ……………………………$18,837
Cashiers…………………………………………………$19,377
Retail Salespersons ……………………………………$25,133
Stock Clerks and Order Fillers………………………...$22,553
Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners …………………..$20,027
Landscaping/Goundskeeping Workers……………….$24,213
Motorboat Mechanics…………………………………..$31,881
Maintenance and Repair Workers, Gen. ……………..$30,548

There are an estimated 12,220 members of the workforce working in the jobs listed above in Cape May County. And this list is not exhaustive. It is estimated that over 23,170 members of the workforce are working in jobs that have average salaries that fail below the minimum needed to afford to a 2-bedroom apartment in Cape May County. That means there are well over 23,170 of your neighbors or people you regularly encounter (over 22% of the population as of the 2000 Census) for whom housing is out of reach in Cape May County.

Contact Avedissian at (609) 886-8600 Ext 27 or at: savedissian@cmcherald.com.