As the cost of living continues to skyrocket across the country, one organization is working to improve access to affordable housing for underserved communities. New Jersey Community Capital has leveraged more than $2 billion for families in need of a safe, stable, and affordable place to live. Bernel Hall, President and CEO of New Jersey Community Capital, joined Cheddar to discuss his work on accessible housing and why it's more important now than ever.

Cheddar's News Wrap

New Jersey Organization Works to Improve Access to Affordable Housing

Welcome back to Chester's news wrap everyone as the cost of living continues to skyrocket across the country. One organization is working to improve access to affordable housing for underserved communities. New Jersey community Capital has leveraged more than $2 billion for families in need of a safe, stable and affordable place to live. Here to discuss is Burnell Hall president and Ceo of New Jersey Community Capital Burnell, welcome to the show. We're so happy to have you talk to us more about your organization and how it works with when it comes to affordable housing. Thank you for having me. We are a 35 year old community development financial institution based in Newark. I'm sorry, New Brunswick New Jersey with offices in Newark. We have five main lines of business, one being lending for affordable housing development. Another being, we have a wholly owned real estate development company that exclusively focuses on develop affordable and moderate income housing. We also have a community strategies group that works with municipalities throughout to say New Jersey's to help them cultivate neighborhood revitalization strategies. And then we have a mortgage assistance group as well as a group that buys nonperforming mortgages to help people stay in their homes. Would you like to share any success stories? Because we love hearing those. Yes, Yes. So one of our key successes of 2022 was the purchase of 100 and 69 nonperforming mortgages in 37 states and what I mean, and I say non performing, I mean mortgages where there's a threat for someone to lose their home as a result of nonpayment. Uh much of this is caused by the pandemic and people having interruptions in their income. And so what we did was take advantage of a hood program that allowed non for profits to bid on, nonperforming mortgages by them and work with each individual uh family to mod other branches so that they can regain their credit and assets and stabilize their their home buying situation. Can you break down why it's so expensive to own or rent a place here in the US and what can be done about it? Sure. Sure. Uh the short story is that we are very much a capitalistic society where, you know, profits drive a lot of our thought process. So uh In 2008, when we had our last crisis, a lot of the foreclosed homes were purchased in groups by institutional buyers. They look at those as assets, not as families. And you know, they're looking to flip those assets for the greatest amount of profit possible because they've taken a lot of risk in buying homes where you either had a buyer that was being foreclosed or your border property where someone had already been foreclosed and it had been sitting empty for a long period of time. The issue of that is you have individual families, competed with institutional buyers to buy homes and they're they're a not educated enough in terms of how to go about finding homes that may not be in the purview of institutional buyers and be it's more and more evident than income appreciation is not keeping up with home ownership appreciation. So it's harder to buy a home in terms of saving for down payment and then maintain a home as it relates to the other monthly payment. I know this seems like a very simple question, but can you talk to me about the importance of affordable housing, especially given the current economic situation that we're in? Sure, sure. It's very key for us as a, as a nation of immigrants to have housing at every income level, because it allows for us to have housing for people who make significant amounts of dollars and they may be, you know, Wall Street veterans or people that are teachers or firemen or police officers, everyone should be able to buy home because it's the quickest way to create economic mobility for your current family members and also generations to come. How does the whole community suffer when there isn't affordable housing available for all of its residents? It becomes a community of renters and as we and in the business have figured out, uh, many times when people are not owners, they just don't take care of the properties the same way, right? They don't have the same commitment to making sure that the maintenance of the properties uh, continues to be at or above the par level where they bought it. So what needs to be done to bring down the cost of living in this country, especially when it comes to those underserved communities? Sure, I think it's a, it's a great quest because there's a lot of parts to that answer. First and foremost, as I mentioned earlier, we really need to have set aside for people who are non institutional and just looking to buy their first homes. Uh many cities are doing that. They're creating something called land banks and land trust where they take blighted properties or properties that for whatever reason are run down uh in poor communities. A lot of times, crime ridden communities repurpose those properties and create affordable housing opportunities with the inventory that is there. Do you think the federal government is doing enough, can they do more? I think the federal government took the right step in raising rates and while people will say, you know, the rates where 3.5% of 5.5% that makes it tougher for people to buy home. The counterbalance to that was price appreciation started too slow, which creates more opportunity for people at the near the meat In the household income in the United States to save up dollars, put down the down payment and buy their first home. I have about 30 seconds. But I want to ask, what are some other ways we can support these communities education. We really need to make sure even from middle school on people understand the cost and benefits of homeownership. I think we take for granted that in every family this is discussed around the dinner table and that is not the case. It really needs to be an institution last conversation. And in every school curriculum it is such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for everything you do, because this is such an important topic, especially in the tri state really in our country. Burnell Hall president and Ceo of New Jersey Community Capital. Thank you so much.