Newark is making affordable housing a priority over the next five years.
Over the past five, it has created or preserved about 3500 affordable housing units. The goal for the next five is almost double that, about 6600, with several hundred new units.
Victor Cirilo is head of the city’s Housing Authority.
“We have right now a goal of about 500-plus units in the next five years that are being negotiated,” he said. “Homeownership is very important, so everywhere I go as I drive around, I look at smaller lots that the Housing Authority owns because I know that those are the lots where we are going to be building homes.”
Rutgers Law Professor David Troutt helped the city formulate its plans. He said there’s a crisis.
“Almost 80% of the city are renters and the household income for those renters is about $33,000,” he said. “$33,000 doesn’t go very far.”
The median rent in Newark is $1100 a month, Troutt said, about $400 more than what would be considered affordable at that income level.
“Sixty percent of the residents of this city are housing burdened,” he said, “and a third of the residents of this city are paying more half of their incomes, more than half of their incomes, on housing. Whatever the quality, whatever the size, that’s what they’re spending.”