Rental Assistance Data Two-Thirds Households Served Extremely Low Incomes

CSH Announces Action Plan to Increase

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Resumes can be sent to diane.riley@shanj.org.

Click here to read the administrator job description.

Congratulations to our members Oaks Integrated Care and Volunteers of America Delaware Valley as they were awarded pandemic recovery grants from Camden County. These new grants were awarded to organizations that serve vulnerable and at-need populations across Camden County, provide pandemic-related services to alleviate COVID-19 public health emergencies and response efforts, and strengthen the county’s travel, tourism, and hospitality industries, substantially harmed by the pandemic.

Shout out to Jewish Family Service of Atlantic & Cape May Counties (JFS) has been awarded a $150,000 grant from The Jewish Federations of North America’s (JFNA) Center for Holocaust Survivor Care and Institute on Aging and Trauma. These funds will enable JFS to provide new programming for older adults.

Become a SHA Member and get access to great meetings and many other great member benefits. Need more information? Email Joseph Christensen with your questions.

SHA is honored and pleased to announce that we have been awarded a DCA grant as part of the state's Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) though the Innovation Fund for our Housing Navigation Project.

You can click here to read more about this announcement.

Kate Leahy's introduction at February SHA Meeting. 

President Biden addressed the nation on Tuesday and spoke to the urgent need in communities across the country vowing support.

As highlighted by Diane Yentel, President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, The House (FY2022) spending bill, approved in committee in July 2021, would increase HUD funding by $6.8 billion above FY2021 levels. If enacted, the bill would provide significant funding increases to nearly all HUD programs and would expand rental assistance through the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance program to an additional 125,000 households. The Senate proposal would provide HUD approximately $1 billion less than the House proposal and does not include the major expansion of rental assistance.

Helping to address the needed changes at the federal level for housing over the coming months, Liz Osborn, VP, Public Policy Advocacy and Ayrianne Parks. Sr. Director, Policy Advocacy at Enterprise Community Partners review available possibilities. From tax credits like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to expansion of vouchers and fair housing rules, these steps could prove vital in work on affordable housing for all.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Sandra Thompson announced that the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) and Capital Magnet Fund (CMF) programs will collectively receive nearly $1.14 billion for affordable housing initiatives from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Government-Sponsored Enterprises, or GSEs) based on their 2021 business activities. This allocation marks the largest amount ever provided to the HTF and CMF programs from the GSEs. The HTF program, which is a HUD-overseen program that allocates annual funds to states and state-designated entities to support the production or preservation of affordable housing, will receive $740 million from the GSEs, a $29 million year-over-year increase. The CMF program, which is part of Treasury’s CDFI Fund that competitively awards funds to finance affordable housing activities as well as related economic development and community service facilities, will receive $398 million from the GSEs, a $15 million year-over-year increase.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) has released updated Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program spending data through December 31, 2021. An additional $1.1 billion in ERA1 and $1.3 billion in ERA2 was spent in December – a decrease in both cases from November spending levels. Overall, $18.5 billion from ERA1 and ERA2 has been spent, providing assistance to more than 3.2 million unique households. New Jersey received a total of $589M from ERA1 funds and $552M in ERA2 funding.

Treasury also released demographic data for the first year of ERA, revealing that nearly two-thirds of households served had extremely low incomes.

Newark - The New Jersey State Policy Lab at Rutgers University released a study of challenges faced by local governments seeking to quickly distribute emergency rental assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the city of Newark as a success story. Although housing shortages and evictions were a problem before March of 2020, they became a crisis when lockdowns and shuttered businesses resulted in job and income loss, an impact that has been especially severe in urban communities. The report focuses on the efforts of five municipalities to disperse federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) funds: Newark, Jersey City, Trenton, Elizabeth, and Camden.

CSH Announces Action Plan to Increase Capital, Equity,

Women and people of color manage less than 1.3% of the $70 trillion global financial markets comprising of mutual funds, hedge funds, real estate, and private equity. Not surprisingly, just 2% of the real estate industry in the United States includes Black-led companies. This racial homogeneity in asset management lends itself to biases in lending and financing decisions forcing limitations on BIPOC developers.

To bridge this gap and expand BIPOC developers' access to capital and resources in supportive housing, CSH has launched the "Redesigning Access by Centering Equity" or RACE Initiative. In 2021, they committed more than $60 million in lending and aim to continue to allocate more funds over the next five years. This action plan seeks to:

East Hanover, NJ – At the start of 2022, as the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic began to subside and public health efforts continued, experts reflected on the pandemic’s impact on employment in the U.S. This special edition of National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) presents data from 2019 through 2021 for people with and without disabilities, showing stark contrasts in their progression from pre-pandemic employment levels of 2019, the impact of 2020 lockdowns, followed by the beginnings of recovery in 2021.

The New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF), Children’s System of Care (CSOC) announces the opportunity for applicants statewide to become qualified to provide Intensive In Home Clinical and Therapeutic Supports and Services (IIH Clinical services) for eligible children, youth, adolescents, or young adults under the age of 21 with co-occurring intellectual/developmental disability (I/DD) eligibility and mental health needs in accordance with state and federal law; and children, youth, adolescents, or young adults under the age of 21 with Autism, (hereinafter youth).

You may access the RFQ and related documents here.

COVID-19 has emphasized the essential role landlords play in providing housing to low-income and formerly homeless households. Quickly rehousing people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic will help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and protect vulnerable individuals from the risk of severe illness. As communities begin rehousing work in challenging rental markets, they should consider ways to engage with landlords through the use of financial incentives. This document provides an overview of how to operationalize landlord incentives permitted under the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG)—Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (ESG-CV) notice. Prior to beginning landlord engagement efforts, communities should review 5 Tips to Approaching Rehousing with Racial Equity.

A new brief from the RRF Foundation for Aging, Home Front and Center: Supporting Access to Affordable and Quality Housing, explores challenges and opportunities to keeping older adults in stable housing. The issue brief digs into the roots of housing instability among older adults and highlights strategies for promoting safe, supportive housing; addressing inequities and preventing homelessness; and enabling more affordable housing for older adults.

The moratorium on utility shutoffs ends on March 15, 2022. If you need help paying your home heating and electric bills or water bills, go to the NJ DCA Utility Assistance page you can find on bit.ly/DCAIDportal. You may also call 1-800-510-3102.

The Northeast and Caribbean MHTTC and the Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey are proud to offer a free webinar series for professionals in the behavioral health workforce designed to spotlight different aspects of mental health services for the Latinx/Hispanic community and adequately respond to their unique mental health needs.

Explore the intersectionality and cultural diversities within the Hispanic and Latinx community and how it impacts mental health services with a focus on cultural considerations and trauma histories. Presented by Dr. Azara Santiago Rivera.

This 2.5 hour workshop is designed for CSS staff who develop and submit plans to the IME. Workshop participants must bring a de-identified IRP in development or have previously been submitted and received feedback but are not currently on hold to discuss and review. This will be entirely practice-based, and participants must be willing to bring a de-identified plan and provide feedback to others. Participants will work in small groups led by a SHP CSS staff. Each participant will present their plan, ask questions, and receive feedback and suggestions from those in their group. CSS programs should limit registration to 1 to 2 staff. 

If you have any questions regarding the CSS IRP Development Workshop, please contact Emilie Banz, Shelley Buchbinder, or Earle Leitch.

Learn more about CSS @ Rutgers events and resources.

For a listing of the available trainings from the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights in the next months, please click here for a list and descriptions.

for all of the trainings, please click here.

March 3 from 9:30am-12:30pm | March 15 from 1pm-4pm

Each session is an opportunity to learn from our experts, and to ask them what your top concerns are.

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