I wonder how much it would cost to sublet an apartment in the "projects"

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never said the 'luxury' hi-rises were cages. sf/human ratio is dramatically different. also never said they were ugly on the inside. not my style, but most of them 'look' fancy on the inside. (though the housing projects from the 70's being torn down all around the area are better constructed).

and i know plenty of 'rich' people who act like animals. ever met the 'president' of the Newport Waterfront Association?

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that's actually fairly common in many parts of europe. paris and prague definitely come to mind.....

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Yet the "rich" people in these cages don't act like animals as you describe.

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Yep - I heard on NPR yesterday morning that there are more poor people in the suburbs than in the cities.

Yeah i, too, found the word 'projects' in the title an unfortunate choice...

i think (hopefully) people have learned from the mistakes of the past, that if you put people in cages like animals, they will act like them. Most affordable-housing built these days is lower density, low-rise, such as the Lafayette Village houses on Grand Street towards communipaw.


I love the irony - 20-30 years ago, the rich lived in low-rise houses, and the poor lived in ugly towers. Now, the 'rich' of jersey city live in ugly hi-rises, and the poor have houses with roofs and lawns and trees.

Turnabout is totally fair play.

Please no more projects. I am all for affordable housing, just not projects which I think are a disgrace and one of the more enduring forms of racism.

Affordable housing groups to get help in putting projects together

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

As part of an effort to beef up the capacity of local nonprofits to build affordable housing, the Jersey City City Council has awarded a $250,000 two-year contract to the Local Initiative Support Corp., a national organization that will consult with the local groups.

A major stumbling block to the development of more affordable housing in the city is not having enough organizations with the financial and management savvy to put the projects together, said Darice Toon, director of the Division of Community Development.

LISC will work with these groups to identify the areas they need help in - areas likely to include financing projects and management, Toon said.

Of the $250,000 LISC is being paid, $214,000 will be returned to the groups to spend on training, she said.

From 2002 to 2006, LISC held a $148,500 contract with the city, and during the life of that contract returned $126,000 in training grants to five groups that are developing 84 affordable housing units in the city, she said.

The effort is being undertaken to buttress an overall affordable housing plan the city is formulating, officials said.

The centerpiece of this plan is to push developers to include affordable housing in the projects they are building, officials said. This plan should be finalized "within the next couple of months," Housing Economic Development and Commerce Director Barbara Netchert said.

Currently, developers with tax abatements pay $1,500 into a city-run affordable housing trust fund for every market-rate unit they build, officials said.

Created in 2004, but put into effect in September 2005 when a spending plan was adopted, the fund has taken in $8.1 million and dispersed $2.5 million for seven projects creating 132 housing units for families earning 80 percent or less of the area's median income, Toon said.

"We have not received many other viable requests," Toon said. "Plus, when you have to pay a lot for land (in Jersey City) it makes it difficult to fund affordable housing."