Wayne Meyer 

Greetings!  

 

We're starting with 200 families.

 
We acquired 125 Newark-area properties--totaling 200 housing units--as part of the largest federal auction of distressed properties in U.S. history. Some units are occupied by homeowners or tenants; others are vacant. All of them are plagued by underwater mortgages.

 

Mending these remnants of the housing crisis requires new ideas; we call ours ReStart. Through this program, we will offer mortgage modifications and one-on-one counseling to help the distressed homeowners in these homes avoid foreclosure. And we will turn the vacant properties back into homes for new families in need.

 

The 200 ReStart families are a small step in resolving the continuing crisis, but for the homeowners and occupants, it will be life-changing. Moreover, in preserving these homes, we are building a model, and by repeating this model many times over in communities across the country, we can have a lasting impact in making distressed communities stable again. In fact, alongside our effort in Newark, we are resolving 136 additional mortgages in Tampa, Florida, one of the hardest-hit communities in the nation. 

 

We look forward to sharing the progress of this program as it evolves.

 

   
Wayne T. Meyer, President

 

   

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In March, NJCC Director of Housing Programs Jennifer Murphy trained ReStart Specialists from five HUD-approved counseling agencies, including La Casa de Don Pedro and Housing Services of Central Florida.  These agencies will soon begin introducing eligible families to ReStart and helping them remain homeowners by assisting in debt management, financial planning, and access to financial and social resources.

 

At the same time, NJCC will work with these families to provide them affordable new mortgages with monthly payments set at 35% of their income, an average write-down of almost 50% of what they currently owe.  By keeping them in their homes and helping them become financially stable, NJCC will protect these families from hardship and displacement, while helping their neighbors avoid the distress and destabilization that vacant homes create.

 

 

 

As small businesses move forward in their long-term recovery from Superstorm Sandy, NJCC continues to offer REBUILD New Jersey disaster recovery loans as a resource. REBUILD loans are timely (average turnaround time under two weeks), affordable (3% interest, up to 3 months interest-free), and thorough (cover damage, loss of inventory or equipment, and financial losses due to business closures).

 

In January, NJCC provided a $30,000 REBUILD loan to Grove Street Bicycles in Jersey City, which suffered five days of power outages and heavy flooding in its basement. NJCC was the first to respond to its requests for recovery support, and the store is again fully operational and looking to expand. Read more about Grove Street Bicycles and other businesses that REBUILD has supported here.

 
  

Supporting Supportive Housing

New Jersey is home to almost one million disabled individuals, and stable housing remains one of the most important needs for this population. In November, NJCC provided $327,000 in financing to Garden State Episcopal CDC to renovate a vacant Jersey City property into four units of supportive housing for special needs residents. And in January, NJCC offered a bridge loan of $112,500 to help NewBridge Services acquire a single-family property in Rockaway that currently houses four special-needs tenants who may have otherwise been displaced.

 

New Loan Pool

NJCC recently acquired a pool of 38 loans totaling over $60 million in outstanding principal balance from TICIC, Inc., an intermediary that has helped community banks lend to community development projects in New Jersey. This purchase significantly expands NJCC's managed assets and its relationships with socially-driven borrowers. NJCC will responsibly manage these loans, which primarily support affordable multifamily housing developments along with several retail properties and social service facilities.

 

Sharing Knowledge

NJCC continues to share its strategies and innovations with a wide range of stakeholders. In the last month, Wayne Meyer presented at the New Jersey Future Redevelopment Forum 2013 on NJCC's foreclosure recovery initiatives, spoke to social justice leaders at an Isaiah Funds convening on expanding NJCC's response to Superstorm Sandy, and visited Washington, D.C. to promote the work of CDFIs to the offices of New Jersey legislators, including Senator Robert Menendez, Senator Frank Lautenberg, and Representative Chris Smith.

 

Supporting Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credits 

The Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey recently released a study on the importance of Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credits in bringing investments to low-income communities. This study, which NJCC supported, was featured in a January 10 Star Ledger editorial, which noted: "few investments deliver on their promise. This one does."

 

Recent Contributions

NJCC relies on many supporters to carry out its transformative work. Last month, NeighborWorks granted NJCC over $150,000 in its 2013 funding cycle and selected NJCC as one of four organizations to receive a Community Stabilization Implementation Grant, which will be used to integrate ReStart into Newark's prestigious Living Cities Integration Initiative. NJCC is also grateful to Wells Fargo, which provided a $500,000 equity equivalent investment (EQ2) to support affordable housing creation and the revitalization of distressed New Jersey communities.