4 min read June 2023 — The future of affordable housing in New Jersey is bright. According to Leslie Anderson, president & CEO of the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority, the housing boom has provided financial resources through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) and “the Authority has the opportunity to make a tremendous impact in New Jersey’s communities that have often been overlooked,” she told Invest:.
What have been the key highlights and milestones for your organization over the past year?
I think our involvement in COVID support was tremendous for us. When COVID first hit in 2020, I said to the staff that most of the support is going to small businesses. The New Jersey Redevelopment Authority works in some of the most challenged communities in the state of New Jersey and the challenge is that people are not comfortable investing in the communities in which we work. We received Cares Act money to support what we called our Small-Business Lease Program, a rental assistance program funded through the CARES Act, which targeted companies that were less than 5,000 square feet.
Close to 90% of the businesses we supported were minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses. We also saw that many of the people we helped had not qualified for prior programs. I think 50% of the people had not qualified for prior programs because they were too small.
The feedback that we received, which I’m most proud of, is that our process was easy. It didn’t cause them to jump through significant hoops. Everything we did was online, and we transferred the money directly to their landlords, so their rent was paid. And in those cases where we had language barriers or technology barriers, we partnered with organizations in the community, like chambers of commerce, where the businesses could go and get the support they needed to complete their application.
Why do you think there is a low incentive to invest in the communities you serve?
It’s a belief that in communities of color you’re not going to get the return on investment that you’re looking for, and that’s not true. I think that historically things have happened in these communities that have not been overcome, and in some of these communities, there’s a history of civil unrest. As a result of that, we’re still holding their feet to the fire 50-plus years later. A decision has to be made and that’s why we were created: to get into these communities first and jumpstart that investment in projects so that the private sector can see the value and recognize that it’s important to come into cities like these and make a difference.
How important are diversity and inclusion to promote investment in those communities?
It’s critical. It’s important that when people are looking to do business, they see people who understand their language. When I was talking about the Small-Business Lease Program, it was a challenge for me because I only speak English, but we had people backing us up, speaking Spanish. I made sure that we had people in the call center who were bilingual. I know what it feels like to be dismissed simply because of your color, simply because you don’t look like the mainstream. And having felt that, I’ve worked diligently to create a culture of inclusivity at the Authority and not only just inclusive, but respectful. We are addressing the issues that impact what happens in the communities we serve.
What are your thoughts on where the economy is heading?
We’re seeing that projects that may have been installed pre-COVID are trying to come back online but the costs have escalated. For example, I’m looking at a project development whose cost was estimated at about $7 million. That was pre-COVID. Now, it is $10 million. It affects us in terms of the underwriting because we don’t know if the project can sustain another roughly $3 million in debt to support its completion.
What we’re also seeing in a lot of our businesses is that because of the pay scale many people are not coming back to some of the work that they had before COVID. They’ve moved on. I think a lot of people have also become entrepreneurs. A lot of people took advantage of the programs that were made available and went back to school to improve themselves. So that is also a challenge.
As a redevelopment authority, how do you deal with gentrification issues?
You’re not going to learn that you live in a redevelopment area from the newspaper. You’re not going to open up the newspaper and see that you live in that kind of place. The word we used when I first started working in this arena was blighted. You have to be gentle with that word, blighted, because that’s where somebody lives. So, you have to be careful. I think that we’ve gone a long way with our training institute to pull communities in, to work together with developers to improve the quality of life because whether we like it or not, these communities need some level of improvement. The question is how do we do it? Do we go in and knock everything down and push them out and give them a voucher and say go live wherever you want to live? Or do we involve them in the process and talk about what they want it to look like? What do you want? What kind of services do you want there?
I think gentrification is going to happen, but its impact can be dramatically minimized if you take the right approach with the community and talk to them. They bring value and they should be respected.
What is your outlook for the next three to four years?
For the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority, our outlook is tremendous. We have $25 million and the potential to access more to facilitate affordable housing, so the outlook is very bright. The Authority has the opportunity to make a tremendous impact, knowing that we can be there first to jumpstart investment and development in New Jersey’s communities that have often been overlooked.
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