Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Housing

Summary

Highlights

• NJ Grantmakers hosted a briefing on federal policy impacts on housing. 🏢
• The need for advocacy and contingency planning was heavily emphasized. 📋
• Speakers discussed potential federal cuts and their implications on state-level housing. 🔍
• Effective housing policy requires robust data collection and analysis. 📊
• The event was recorded, providing ongoing access to valuable insights. 🎥

Key Takeaways

• Federal policies might profoundly affect housing in NJ, highlighting the need for local advocacy. 📢
• Despite challenges, there's a push for local and state-level innovations in housing solutions. 🏘️
• The crucial role of data in effectively responding to housing needs was underscored. 💾
• Speakers emphasized the importance of strategic planning against potential policy impacts. 📅
• Continuous dialogue between funders, government, and nonprofits is key to addressing housing issues. 🗣️

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Overview The introduction and overview initially offers greetings and gratitude to the attendees, introduced by Teresa Dax, president and CEO of the Council of New Jersey Grant Makers. It signifies the fifth briefing in the series 'Making Sense of Federal Policy: What it Means for New Jersey,' concentrating on housing policy. The format includes a panel of speakers, a moderated discussion, followed by a Q&A session.
• 05:00 - 14:00: National Perspective on Housing and Homelessness The chapter titled 'National Perspective on Housing and Homelessness' begins with the host informing the audience that the meeting will be recorded and that the recording, along with any slides and resources, will be shared via email after the program. Due to limited time, full speaker bios will not be read aloud during the meeting as they have already been distributed via email.
• 14:30 - 28:00: State Perspective on Housing and Homelessness The chapter titled "State Perspective on Housing and Homelessness" begins with an introduction to the availability of the program's transcript online, with Shakira sharing the link in the chat. The session is moderated by Lucy Vandenberg, the executive director of the Schuman Fund for New Jersey and the co-chair of the New Jersey Policy Committee. Lucy leads the panel by introducing the panelists and facilitating the discussion.
• 28:30 - 39:00: Local Perspective on Housing and Homelessness The chapter titled 'Local Perspective on Housing and Homelessness' discusses significant engagement and interest in the topics of housing and homelessness within New Jersey. It highlights a virtual panel featuring various experts. The discussion includes a national perspective on the issues, with a particular focus on funding. Additionally, the chapter promises insights from New Jersey state representatives and nonprofit partners, providing a comprehensive look at both the national and local situations concerning housing and homelessness.
• 39:30 - 47:00: Opportunities and Challenges in Affordable Housing The chapter begins with a focus on the efforts surrounding affordable housing and homelessness prevention in Jersey, highlighting both policy work and practical on-the-ground strategies. Alisa Harrian, a policy strategist with the Fund for Housing and Opportunity, is featured as the first speaker. She provides a national perspective, particularly zooming in on philanthropy and the role of the funding community in addressing these issues. The chapter sets the stage for discussing the opportunities and challenges present in the realm of affordable housing.
• 52:00 - 59:00: HUD and Continuum of Care Program The chapter provides an introduction to a discussion led by Alisa, who thanks Lucy for hosting the event and expresses appreciation for the collaboration among regional funders. The focus is on navigating the changing political landscape, with Alisa preparing to present a set of slides.
• 60:00 - 67:00: Contingency Planning and Infrastructure Protection The chapter titled 'Contingency Planning and Infrastructure Protection' begins with Alisa Harrian, a policy strategist with the Fund for Housing and Opportunity, introducing herself and providing context about their organization. FHO is a nationwide collaborative focused on working with funders to protect renters.
• 72:00 - 81:00: Organizing and Strategy in Affordable Housing The chapter titled 'Organizing and Strategy in Affordable Housing' discusses efforts to prevent homelessness through a collaborative fund established approximately seven and a half years ago. This fund includes participation from major foundations such as Ford Gates, Melville Charitable Trust, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Additionally, the fund is supported by several regional and place-based funders. The core funders' group comprises 11 collaborative members who have pooled their resources to address affordable housing and prevent homelessness.
• 85:00 - 90:00: Data Collection and the Role of Funders The chapter discusses the dual approach to their work involving a pooled fund used for grant-making focused on housing justice and a learning network aimed at deeper engagement and strategy sharing. Recent changes in membership structure now facilitate easier participation for community foundations and regional funders.
• 93:00 - 95:00: Medicaid and Housing Waiver Discussion The chapter titled 'Medicaid and Housing Waiver Discussion' covers the topics relevant to grant distribution, policy movement, and financial strategies within a network. The speaker mentions that they handle around 4 million dollars a year, dedicated to nationwide distribution for policy advancement, primarily categorized into three main areas. The focus of the chapter is to provide a high-level overview of these key areas.
• 96:00 - 99:00: Closing Remarks The chapter titled "Closing Remarks" discusses the overwhelming and confusing nature of the federal administration's actions this year. It outlines that the volume and rapid succession of governmental activities are part of a strategy to confuse and overwhelm the public, making it hard to keep track of events and discern the appropriate course of action.

Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Housing Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Great. Thank you. So, thank you everyone for for joining us this morning. I'm I'm Teresa Dax, president CEO of the Council of New Jersey Grant Makers. And today's fun briefing um is our fifth in our making sense of federal policy, what it means for New Jersey um briefing. Today's a today's program will focus on housing. We have a panel of speakers uh with a moderated discussion and that'll be followed by Q&A. And as I've shared,
• 00:30 - 01:00 we're recording the meeting. So there there'll be a second audience for the meeting um too. But we're glad that that you're here. Um the recording any slides and resources will be shared with you in a postprogram email after the after the program. We also have very limited time and a lot to get to. So instead of reading all the speakers bios, we shared them with you earlier today via email. Thank you Tanica for that. They're also
• 01:00 - 01:30 available to read online on the event page for this program. And I think Shakira is going to share that link in the chat. So with that, I'd like to welcome our moderator, Lucy Vandenberg, executive director of the Schuman Fund for New Jersey and also co-chair of the New Jersey Policy Committee, who will introduce the panelists and take us through. So Lucy, toss it over to you. Good afternoon everybody. Uh it's great to see you all and um to see folks uh
• 01:30 - 02:00 really engaged and interested around housing and homelessness in New Jersey. There is a lot going on and we have an really amazing panel for you today. Uh we've got folks who are coming uh virtually here to talk to us about the national perspective, what's happening uh nationally, particularly from the funding perspective. And then we'll hear from the state of New Jersey as well as from our nonprofit partners in New
• 02:00 - 02:30 Jersey uh doing the policy and on the ground work around affordable housing and homelessness prevention. So I am going to uh jump right in. We're going to start by hearing from Alisa Harrian who is the policy strategist with the Fund for Housing and Opportunity uh and is going to give us a national perspective and and uh with a particular focus on philanthropy and the funding community. So, we're really excited to
• 02:30 - 03:00 hear from Alisa and I'm going to uh turn it over to you. Welcome. Thank you, Lucy. Appreciate it. Um thank you for hosting this event as well. Um this is uh I'm really happy to see um regional funders getting together and talking about this and collaborating and kind of seeing where uh how we navigate the changing political landscape as it moves forward. I do have a set of slides um that are being pulled up at the
• 03:00 - 03:30 moment. And so um so again uh Alisa Harrian, policy strategist with the fund for housing and opportunity. You can go to the next slide. Um just very briefly just to provide a little context of who we are. Um FHO is a nationalwide collaborative uh working together um with uh with funders in order to protect renters and
• 03:30 - 04:00 prevent homelessness. Uh the fund was created about seven and a half years ago with several really large foundations. So Ford Gates, Melville Charitable Trust, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. But it's not just really large foundations. We actually have several regional and placebased funders as well part of our network. Our core set of funders um of the collaborative are 11 a group of 11 and they've pulled together
• 04:00 - 04:30 funds. So the way that we work is in two parts. We have a pulled fund that we do grant making for a variety of housing justice oriented ways and then it's a learning network as well that goes a bit deeper with folks to be able to share strategies. Um if you want to learn more I'm happy to follow up with you and provide more information. We just changed our membership structure, so it's actually a lot easier for community foundations um and regional funders to be able to be
• 04:30 - 05:00 part of our network. Um and we give out about 4 million a year. So our grant-making dollars are a little bit smaller, but we give out most of the money that comes in um throughout the nation in order to kind of move policies in three main bucket areas. The next slide, please. So most of my time today um I want to just provide a high-level overview of a few key areas. So there's been a lot of
• 05:00 - 05:30 action going on from the federal administration this year. Um it's been a whirlwind and it can be really hard to keep track of what is going on and that's part of the strategy is to overwhelm and to just kind of confuse folks. So there's some of the things have been very confusing, have been vague, have been very like multiple actions, one right after another and trying to um kind of scatter folks to a point where you don't know where to move
• 05:30 - 06:00 or how to act on it. And also some of the actions, there's questions about the legality of them. And so one of the main ways that like on a national level that we've been working with funders um is talking about at the national level most of the work is going to be a block defend delay strategy and some of it is using our legal partners literally to be putting um lawsuits or legal actions in order to prevent delay and block some of
• 06:00 - 06:30 those orders and we've seen some action. there is large mobilizing around um organizations really calling their um congressional leaders which has been very effective and we saw that with the funding freeze. Um, and then the other strategy that is I really want folks to think about is although it can be difficult to move things at the national level or things might seem bleak, some really bright spots are happening at local and state levels. And there is a lot of opportunity to support local and
• 06:30 - 07:00 state level. And I think one of the big things we've been saying is we don't need to get stuck in just the moment. We also need to think about what's going to happen in two, four, and 10 years. And some of what's needed is to do power building and organizing of folks and move policies at the local state level. Um here on the slide, and you'll have access to my slides, there's actually several notes on there because I won't be able to get through everything, but I wanted to highlight a few areas. So in January, we saw an executive order really attacking DEI and um there were
• 07:00 - 07:30 also anti-immigrant um uh and the anti-immigrant policy. This has sparked a lot of questions about if federal funding is going to be coming through to the states and to the organizations changes last minute changes with contracts. We saw some of that with the continuum of care um in the last month of like new new conditions set and then they pulled it back and retracted it after some legal action and then we'll
• 07:30 - 08:00 be putting out new letters for folks. And so it's very confusing what's going on and the possibility of immediate um dire uh things happening in their community. And so one place is you can always go to FHO or Funders Together Dent Homelessness. We're doing a lot to kind of track some of these issues. Um the anti-immigrant is really has been sparking a a lot of raids whether they have been with warrants or just open space areas. And so a lot of this is
• 08:00 - 08:30 really to create fear and in order to get groups to acquest um um ahead of time. And part of that is you have so much fear that you think everybody that the national government is going to come after you that you will act and remove your own DEI policies or serving immigrants on your own before you are required to based on your contracts or any legal action. So we really encourage folks to not act ahead of time. keep moving forward. Really talk to your
• 08:30 - 09:00 funders. A big action was um that also was pretty harmful was the 50% reduction in HUD staff and closing of regional HUD offices. Reduce staff means less programming or or delay times in getting federal resources or information out. Um another big one that just happened just a couple weeks ago was an executive order on the criminalization of homelessness. So this is pretty important because it starts off with and this is on the third block there the
• 09:00 - 09:30 beautifification of DC and national park services. So they're really talking about we want to beautify DC remove homelessness so our uh capital is beautiful. So the tricky part of this is although the language title is around DC, it really has this level around implications of all national parks as a test ground to then move to other public areas for homelessness to criminalize folks. Um this is really working to remove folks um from spaces without
• 09:30 - 10:00 support and services. Um and then also um we have been expecting a uh executive order on mixed status households. Uh initially one was introduced in 2019 by the Trump administration at that time. It failed because it was not written uh in a way that it could be implemented. We believe that they have probably learned lessons and will likely make sure that it sticks this time. Um, and so this really is around restricting um, mixed status families where you might
• 10:00 - 10:30 have some folks who are documented and some that aren't. Folks who are undocumented are not getting subsidies and folks who are documented that do. And so it would require families to separate or lose their subsidy. And if if the public housing authority doesn't comply, they could be at jeopardy of losing all their federal funding. Um, there's a lot more, but this is just a piece. and they have they have sent a letter to um the legacy public housing authorities in the last couple of weeks
• 10:30 - 11:00 and it is signaling a move towards what we might see the full order going across the board. Next slide. So as funders, what do we do? There's a lot going on and we know philanthropy cannot fill the full gap of the federal funding. So, a federal government say we're not going to fund it. How do groups who rely on these resources, especially for homelessness services and prevention, how do you move forward with your DEI work and continue with that? And philanthropy, like I
• 11:00 - 11:30 said, cannot fill all those gaps. It is just too large. Um, and so there's a few ways on here um that we've been suggesting that folks consider as funders, whether you have large resources or small resources. One key thing, check in with your grantees. We have heard from many many organizations that they have not been contacted by their funders um just to even say we're we're thinking of you um how are you doing? What supports do you need? Even if you don't have more resources to
• 11:30 - 12:00 provide funding just talking to them and just letting them know you care and you you have their back and that your organization is committed to continuing resources. There is a lot of fear because we have seen some trends of some funders actually pulling back and notifying groups that they can no longer use their resources to support um immigrant families, documented, undocumented or transgender folks like they've been acquiescencing ahead of time. Um and so many funders are not doing that. So just
• 12:00 - 12:30 check in with folks. It they very much appreciate it. Um, and for you as funders, don't move ahead of time before you're required. On a medium level, um, you could be hosting, um, convenings for your grantees on trainings. There's advocacy trainings, trainings on, on legal general education, not necessarily like your specific issue, but general for folks. Wellness sessions is a new one I've been hearing that folks have been enjoying and appreciating. um
• 12:30 - 13:00 encourage other funders to support crossu housing justice work. Um I'm going to go over just like 30 seconds, but let me get through this part. Um one of the high levels is you could be joining a collaborative of fun collaborative or letters to sign on. There is a letter currently available for sign on a statement from the council on foundations and I'm going to drop it in the chat. Encourage folks to take a look at it. sign on, do something regional and state your positions that you care about this and you don't want
• 13:00 - 13:30 to see um New Jersey um you know who who your your values and your beliefs are. It can be high level. It doesn't have to be about bills. It can just be you all. Next slide and I'll be wrapping up. One of the other things that you all can be doing is going to bimonthly policy calls. Funders together in homelessness and FHO host bimonthly meetings. Um here our next one is around the fight for immigrant rights and housing justice. And then early in the month every month
• 13:30 - 14:00 we do any policy updates where especially if there's urgent actions um or urgent things that folks need to be updated as the exe executive orders are coming forward. You can join my last slide is you can join um philanthropy supporting organizations and get updated on these different topics. I've listed a bunch on my slides. There's links to all of these organizations. FHO is one of those. So if you'd like to join us or if you like to join Funders Together homelessness and stay updated on these as a high level and then we do talk about the strategies on a local state
• 14:00 - 14:30 level as well. Thank you. Thank you Lisa. There's so many great ideas in uh your presentation about actions that funders can take and we'll talk about that a little bit more during the Q&A as well. I'm going to turn it over now to Janelle Winter who's uh the director of the Division of Housing and Community Resources at the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, who's going to give us the state perspective on uh what what the state is seeing in
• 14:30 - 15:00 terms of affordable housing and homelessness uh policy from the federal government and what's happening at the state level as well. So, thank you Janelle for joining us today. Thank you very much. very happy to be here and to um have the opportunity to talk with everyone about what we're seeing here. And so at DCA um we uh through the division of housing and community resources administer more than half a billion dollars uh every year of federal
• 15:00 - 15:30 funding. So obviously the things that are happening at the federal level are very um important to us right now. And that includes uh housing choice voucher program, what we used to call section 8, with more than uh 25,000 households on that program, as well as capital funding from the national housing trust fund and the home programs, community development block grant funding, um some utility assistance funding, lie, which has definitely been in the news lately. We
• 15:30 - 16:00 also administer the state's um we house the state's office of homelessness prevention and office of eviction prevention. So as uh things happen that might cause homelessness or evictions to spike, those are very much on our minds even though those offices are state funded. So, some of the changes that we're looking at and considering how they are going to affect New Jersey and have the potential to increase housing insecurity,
• 16:00 - 16:30 um, an overall pivot from housing first and to more punitive and caral approaches to homelessness as well as more punitive approaches in housing programs like the housing choice voucher program. And here's Alisa mentioned, we're thinking about uh programs that will cut uh cut down or eliminate the ability to serve mixed status families in housing programs. Also, potential things that will not be funding cuts exactly, but will have the effect of
• 16:30 - 17:00 funding cuts or reducing the number of households that can be served. These are things like work requirements in the housing choice voucher program which we've heard uh brooded about as a potential. Uh these are things like um you know different priorities for who can be served in these programs. Things like caps on the length of time someone might stay in a voucher program. All of these things while they're not directly
• 17:00 - 17:30 uh f funding cuts to the program will have the impact of that. it will say certain people have to come off the program uh they won't be able to be served and whether that funding will be replaced or not is you know I guess left to the future also uh revoking certain rules that are really helpful in our federal programs there's the um affirmatively furthering fair housing rule there is equal access rule whether they're officially revoked or whether as
• 17:30 - 18:00 in the case of you know requiring shelters to accept people who are transgender, whether HUD has simply said that they will no longer enforce the rule, which again has the effect for people of that rule being um revoked. the various the impact of various things that come out in executive orders which have covered a variety of topics that affect um our housing programs. And of course, uh, decreased funding or the potential for decreased funding and funding cuts, you know, and even in
• 18:00 - 18:30 programs like our housing choice voucher program, even things that aren't a funding cut, but are, you know, what looks like level level funding due to the fact that every year the rent goes up, uh, might have the impact again of a funding cut and of a loss in potential vouchers as we have to pay increased rents. And some of those actions you know as I mentioned include uh what will be the uh effect of work requirements
• 18:30 - 19:00 uh in addition as other programs are cut or as in the economic climate we see an impact on people's ability to work what will that effect be on people's incomes or on their need for programs. So, you know, in housing there's a saying that uh the rent always eats first and that people always do their best to make sure they can pay rent before anything else is addressed, but people do need to eat. People do need to get health care. So, as we see cuts in other programs like
• 19:00 - 19:30 SNAP, like Medicaid, etc., what might be the impact on people's incomes that mean either they'll be able to pay less for their rents and if they're in the program we'll pay more or um they will need programs more that might not be here again also with the economic climate if people are if we see people being evicted more frequently if we see people uh you know losing jobs losing their housing they might become homeless what will be the effect to the pro existing programs we
• 19:30 - 20:00 have we're also concerned about potential cuts to the housing production funds. So if we cannot build more affordable housing, then we will need, you know, people will continue to need rental support through rental assistance. And as that program either stays, you know, level or is cut, we will see more people falling into that gap. So we absolutely need to be able to build more affordable housing because we're not going to be able to address this issue long term with only vouchers.
• 20:00 - 20:30 uh concerned also about cuts to CDBG lead and weatherization which al all serve to make the housing that people live in safe for them and if we can't if we don't see uh that funding renewed you know what will we do about these um about the impact there and finally you know as Alisa mentioned those staff cuts which will also you know affect how quickly funding gets out to people how quickly funding can get
• 20:30 - 21:00 out to our low-income households and also how people have information and knowledge about these programs. And so what can what as we look at it from the state level, what can we do about this? So some things that we are looking at is we have the ability to access data through a lot of uh systems and sources so that we can really be developing um short, medium and long-term predictions for housing, for economic impact, for homelessness, for evictions. You know,
• 21:00 - 21:30 we work very closely with the courts. We get a bi-weekly feed of every eviction filed in the state. So, as as well as the dispositions of cases um both this year and we're they're uh delivering to us over the past several years, we have a lot of information on people who are homeless and what impact that sees. So, we have a lot of ways to look at data and say what might happen in the future. We can use that both to look at our at what we think might happen and then to
• 21:30 - 22:00 see how can we more precisely target the funding we do have to really be able to address where we see those hot spots coming up. Also the ability to raise awareness of what the impact of federal policies might be. We're working with our landlords who right now might not know um some of them seem not to be aware of how things like cuts to federal programs might actually impact them. Also, many people don't realize how certain policies might actually affect
• 22:00 - 22:30 these programs as well. You know, something like a work requirement or a limit on length of stay might not seem like something that's particularly interesting. It's not a headline. It's like paragraph 16 in the news story, but can have really really uh immediate and you know in some cases devastating effects on the people that we're trying to serve. So making sure people are aware of what those things are and why it's important to know about them. We
• 22:30 - 23:00 also have the opportunities to increase that affordable housing development. We are really at a, you know, a key opportunity moment in the state as towns have their new affordable housing obligations. What can we do to make sure to bolster them to make sure they live up to them so that whatever they're doing at the federal level? Um, we we are seeing more affordable housing coming through at the state. You know, again, how do we work with other state agencies to maximize the resources that are flexible? If mixed status families
• 23:00 - 23:30 can't be served in one program, where else can they be served? What else can we do to make sure that they can um that they can be served? And so, does that mean that now certain uh folks will be directed specifically to one program, meaning others will come off that program served in other ways to make sure that we're getting people to the resource that matches them? and also what can we do with our within our own policies and processes to support our grantee agencies, our nonprofits, and
• 23:30 - 24:00 really kind of scaffold that infrastructure. We're looking at how can we make sure that our funding, whether it's state or federal pass through, can get to our nonprofits more quickly. How can we eliminate, streamline some potential barriers that might have been there to make sure that they can be as strong as they can, they can have the money in their hands as quickly as possible. and also what can we do to make sure that they're also aware of the things we have in our state that can support. One thing we're making sure to make sure people are aware of is the
• 24:00 - 24:30 federal policies around things like fair housing etc. They are doing what they are doing but here in the state we have our own policies about non-discrimination about fair housing. Um it's important for people to be aware that those policies at the state level those laws at the state level are still in effect. So just because the feds do what they do does not mean that people can suddenly discriminate in certain areas, refuse access in certain areas
• 24:30 - 25:00 here in New Jersey. So I think it's great news that we have a lot of support uh for those things at the state level. We need to make sure that um that people know about them and can continue to make sure people have those benefits. And what are ways that philanthropy can help us from our perspective? I think one is education and advocating to make sure people know about these things. Also to support New Jersey's affordable housing growth. So
• 25:00 - 25:30 to make sure that um that we are supporting and creating ways for new housing to be built. And that's not only with money, although money is always helpful and desired, but it's with encouraging towns to really take up and um you know launch programs and launch developments that are going to address their obligations. It's looking at these zoning requirements. We have the planning requirements that we have in place and seeing what will support the
• 25:30 - 26:00 development of the housing that we need as quickly as and as efficiently as possible. uh in homelessness prevention. It is again funding always helpful but also you know as we look at what happens at the federal level and Alisa mentioned you know the you know the beautifification of the parks and that is kind of a leading edge into other um actions at criminalizing homelessness here in New Jersey. We already have uh towns looking at the issue of encampments and seeing how they want to
• 26:00 - 26:30 address them. And part of what we try and do is educate and support towns to know that there are much more compassionate and effective ways to address homelessness. Clearing an encampment does not end the issue. It just moves people along, makes puts them in a worse situation than they were. Jailing homeless people doesn't end the issue because when people come out, they are worse off than they were before. They're going to just come back. If we don't get people into housing, help towns get people into housing. You can
• 26:30 - 27:00 clear all the encampments you want, but people will come back because they they need to live somewhere. If we can't get them under a roof, they're going to live outside. And you have not addressed the issue you've just made it harder to address. Supporting data and technology tools for nonprofits and also the use of them. So that as we are are needing to kind of act more um you know more precisely target our funding do all of these things we need to make sure people have the tools to be able to do
• 27:00 - 27:30 that. And then also where how can we fund the gaps as programs like change their eligibility requirements as people there are start to be bigger holes in the safety nets for people to fall through. we're going to need targeted funding that can be flexible and that can act really nimly which is often not government's kind of uh you know hot spot. So where can you really kind of fill in while we are trying to um design larger programs that are is going to
• 27:30 - 28:00 address this? And I think that's it for me. Thank you so much Janelle. And just a quick point of clarification for everyone that Janelle's the assistant commissioner now of the department of community affairs. So, thank you for joining us. And I also wanted to um just do a call out to Renee Kubiatis who is with us from the Department of Community Affairs and also has a long history in affordable housing. So, thank you both to uh for joining us. We really appreciate your partnership and I think all of us in philanthropy know that we
• 28:00 - 28:30 don't always we're not always fortunate as fortunate um to have strong partners in state government. So, it's really wonderful to to know that we have a strong partner at DCA. Um, I'm going to turn it over now to Taiisa Kelly, who is the CEO of Monarch Housing and uh is going to talk to us about uh her perspective in terms of what's happening around homelessness uh with the federal government. Uh thank you, Taiisa. I thank you. I'm going to have a couple of slides that I'm going to share
• 28:30 - 29:00 um and I'm going to try to get through this quickly. Um, so again, thank you all for giving us the opportunity to to speak with you. Again, I'm Taisa Kelly with Monarch Housing and we're a nonprofit that specializes in providing support for the development of affordable and supportive housing throughout New Jersey, as well as working with communities to address homeless issues and developing and implementing plans to address homelessness. So, I'm going to be speaking to you kind of from both of those perspectives of both the housing perspective and the homeless system perspective in terms of what's happening
• 29:00 - 29:30 at the federal level. A lot has been covered about what's happening at the federal level and it really honestly does change from day to day, even hour to hour. So, uh, some of these things might be different um, in in a day or two. Uh, but I think when we're looking at what's going on, I like to kind of group it in three different buckets that we're looking at. We're looking at what are the policy changes that are going to impact how programs are being implemented on the ground. Who's eligible for programs and the approach that agencies are taking to address or implement those programs.
• 29:30 - 30:00 We're looking at the funding threats and the very real challenge of losing resources, losing financial resources to actually implement programs and that's both in housing and in homeless service sector. And then also the challenges around staffing changes and what that does to the ability to um process things for the programs, get contracts, close complete closings on financial deals so that you can get the funding for your projects for development. Um having
• 30:00 - 30:30 technical assistance to answer questions that arise. So all of these things not only create a lot of confusion the way that it's being rolled out, but also really impact the ability of providers to implement these programs on the ground. I wanted to share with you a couple of the impacts that we're seeing from those areas right now. Um and I'm going to share with you some current impacts and some potential impacts. Right now, what we're seeing with the things that have been rolled out, there's a lot of confusion, for example, in the policy space about whether or not
• 30:30 - 31:00 agencies are able to serve uh undocumented households, whether they're allowed to serve households with mixed status, mixed documentation status. And so, we're starting to see agencies pulling back and not accepting individuals who are undocumented for fear that they're going to be out of compliance with um federal regulations even though they haven't received a directive. So that kind of um cutting back beforehand has been a real question and a real issue. Our leadership within our communities that are working on
• 31:00 - 31:30 homeless the homeless service system are really looking at how how they have to um address the DEI executive orders and how that fits with the direction that they've been going in in terms of monitoring their communities and the programs. So, we're starting to see communities start to pull back a little bit in how they have been talking about DEI. Um, and there's just a lot of confusion about whether they have to, what things will be looking at. Um, so it's having an impact because folks
• 31:30 - 32:00 don't want to risk losing the funding that they do have. Um, and then the other really big thing that agencies are struggling with is all of the confusion. For example, Alisa mentioned um there were changes in the contract language for HUD for the continuum of care program. Um there was a change in the language. People were concerned. We're starting to have lawyers look at it. Then HUD pulled the contracts back and now the contracts are coming back out with new language. But those delays really make it challenging for agencies to implement programs. Agencies that have had programs that are up and
• 32:00 - 32:30 running since January 1 don't have contracts currently signed or in the process of getting them signed. and that those delays have a really big implication on their ability to float the program to keep the programs operating. Uh because they're operating these programs, possibly paying rents for people paying for staffing without having an assurance that they're getting that money back anytime soon. In the funding place, I just want to mention really quickly that there has been a lot that's happened. One of the
• 32:30 - 33:00 really um fast changing pieces in this space is HUD canceled the section 4 grants and then I think just a couple of days ago we heard that that has been reversed. They've been restored. Um but there's there's been funding that has been taken away from programs. And one piece that I do want to highlight is that uh the emergency housing voucher program that was issued with vouchers that are have been issued to housing authorities which originally funded to go through 2030 2029 2030. Um housing authorities have been notified that they
• 33:00 - 33:30 have money until the end of 2025. Uh so now they're having to scramble to think about how they're going to absorb and in New Jersey that's almost 1,600 vouchers. How are we going to absorb that in other programs? Um so it's really challenging to figure out how to work within this space in terms of potential impacts. Um as I mentioned there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty. So within the policy change there's a lot of questions around um how this how DEI and the work that the
• 33:30 - 34:00 system has been doing to really incorporate voices of people with lived experience um creating uh low barrier programs that are responsive to the needs of various different populations. how that is going to be impacted, how that work is going to move forward in this in the homeless service system as well as in the housing system. Um, if we continue to see programs cut, if we see continue to see reductions in funding, agencies are really going to be struggling to not only provide the services, but keep in mind for our
• 34:00 - 34:30 homeless service programs and our housing programs, these are resources that are actually housing people. So, we're going to be seeing people evicted from programs. we're or from housing. We're going to be seeing more people who are at risk of homelessness as well as agencies losing the critical resources that they need to just stay afloat, to stay viable and provide service in the community. And again, with the staffing cuts, um there's going to be a lot of questions about how quickly can programs move and be responsive and how long will
• 34:30 - 35:00 it take for the federal government to put resources out into the community um and answer questions that have come up as people are trying to implement programs and stay in compliance with uh federal regulations. So, there's just a lot of uncertainty right now. Um, and just for a little bit of uh just to give you guys a sense of what this looks like, as I mentioned, the emergency housing voucher program, the chart on your I think it should be on your left um is the numbers of vouchers that were
• 35:00 - 35:30 issued to housing authorities across the state through the emergency housing voucher program. And this is what is at risk that is now having to sunset much earlier than expected and housing authorities will have to figure out how to address uh the folks that have been housed that they no longer have a resource to support to continue support of. And the chart on your right is the continuum of care program and that is funding for homeless services and housing. I just wanted to point out typically we think of the continuum of care program as funding for homeless services but a huge chunk of that money
• 35:30 - 36:00 in New Jersey is being used for housing vouchers. So there are about 2400 almost 2500 vouchers that are uh funded through the continuum of care program and this is rental assistance to help keep people in housing. Um and it's a total of about 55 million. And that 55 million that we have is what is currently um in limbo as agencies are waiting for contracts to come through and they're waiting for access to the money so that they can continue those programs.
• 36:00 - 36:30 So given all that I think that what we are seeing in terms of the agencies around the state uh the both nonprofit for-profit uh local government partners have really been thinking about how do we how do we move forward and I think the primary goal is to preserve as much funding preserve the staffing that's necessary the infrastructure and the approaches to really kind of preserve as much as we can and so the ways that we are thinking about making that happen are one we need to make sure that we are increasing awareness ess of programs. I
• 36:30 - 37:00 don't think the average person really knows who, you know, what HUD does. Um, and so making sure that folks understand what these programs are. We throw out a lot of acronyms, but people don't know what that means in in their day-to-day. So, general public through the media, making sure we're connecting with them and also connecting with elected officials. Uh, because we really do need our elected officials to help advocate for and pressure the administration to change course. We saw, as Alisa mentioned, we saw that have um impact when there was a federal funding freeze.
• 37:00 - 37:30 So, we're going to need to see that more and more. Um and then there also needs to be some discussion about what contingency plans we can create at a local level, at a state level, with private partners to ensure that the work can continue. Um and then the last piece is really about protecting the infrastructure. So, we need to have legal support for nonprofits, um, funding for them to have the ability to retain capacity, and then looking at what protective state laws that we can pass to help keep the infrastructure in
• 37:30 - 38:00 place or at least keep the key core components of the infrastructure in place as we weather the storm. I'm going to go quickly through the last couple of slides. Some of the challenges in the space as we're trying to do all of this work, some of the challenges is that there are new nonprofits that are coming to the table to do this advocacy. um they have been done some limited advocacy in the past, but they do need some support in helping to kind of ratchet up the level of advocacy work that they're doing. We have great statewide advocacy partners that are doing this work, but they've got a full agenda already. There's
• 38:00 - 38:30 existing work that's happening and these are new things that are coming on board and we've got new partners that are coming to the table. So there's some work to really help develop the advocacy infrastructure and then also helping to create a statewide response so that we have not only the individual messages of the agencies but also a statewide message about what's happening in this space. Uh so quickly the current needs um this is our estimation of of what would help support this support this space. Um, one, there's a need for
• 38:30 - 39:00 support in helping to build the data to build the information. Um, that's both data collection and analysis. Uh, so that we can clearly talk about the impact. Agencies have information about the individuals that they serve. But we need to be able to talk about what is the impact at a county level, what is the impact at a regional level, and what is the impact at a state level. Um, there is definitely a space for guidance and support to the agencies that are new to this or that are, you know, there's a lot changing all the time. So technical
• 39:00 - 39:30 assistance and legal support um understanding how to protect what is existing and what's already in place. Um and then being prepared to go the legal route if we have to um for any violations that happen in terms of taking back funds. There is a great opportunity I think for information sharing and creating new processes for sharing updates in a real time. uh you know, I know lots of folks get emails and get um you know, newsletters about what's happening, but uh there's there's
• 39:30 - 40:00 I think there's more opportunity to think about how we create a space for all of the nonprofits that are concerned about this issue, all of the foundations, all of the local residents um to understand what's happening um share resources and kind of and think about building that collective message. And then of course finally financial support is always needed in this space. Bridge funding to um help address the delays in federal contracts, capacity retention, um filling in the gaps. Uh so
• 40:00 - 40:30 those are really a couple of the four areas where we see like the biggest need uh to help support the work going forward. And here's my contact information. So I'll stop there, but there's happy to answer any questions that might come up. Thank you, Tya. Um that was amazing information and it's great to see so many actionable ideas about what we can be doing uh even in the midst of this uncertainty. I I'm going to turn it over to Adam Gordon who is going to close us out. He's the
• 40:30 - 41:00 executive director of Fairshare Housing Center. Uh take it away Adam. All right. Oh, share my screen. Great to see you all. Um and you know I'm going to focus more on uh positive opportunities uh that exist because of the unique state framework we have around Mural doctrine the laws have been passed and I preface that by saying you know that is largely because my
• 41:00 - 41:30 fellow panelists have well covered many of the federal threats that exist uh which are very serious and are many of which we engage in as well. But I when we planned this out, we figured we had these up this way. Certainly, if I were a funder, I would be funding a lot of uh the work that that many of us are doing on pushing back against those threats. And I also think it's important to also in really challenging times have a vision for um what we can do and what we
• 41:30 - 42:00 can where we can push forward. And you know, our organization, which just turned 50 a couple of weeks ago, is that's its history. I mean, we were founded by organizers and leaders uh in Mount Laurel who were who were being pushed out, a black community that had been there for 200 years uh founded out of the Underground Railroad that was being displaced by suburban development and white flight from Camden. um and really uh started at at a time that I
• 42:00 - 42:30 won't say it's much like today because I don't think anything's much like today but you know a time of retrenchment a time a time you know that's this started out of the post civil rights movement in the late 60s and early 70s um and decided to fight forward anyway and you know that is our history as an organization when when Chris Christie ran for governor he said he was going to gut the Mount Laurel doctrine and we ended his administration with it being stronger than when it started. Um, and you know, I think that it's really important to in this very challenging
• 42:30 - 43:00 time to also support ways to uh actually move proactively have a vision and fight back. Um, that that goes beyond uh the very necessary work to oppose uh what what is going on fed federally. Um, and just this is a little bit of of this history. You know, we uh during the combination of the Christy
• 43:00 - 43:30 administration and the first Trump administration actually succeeded in roughly doubling the historic housing production under Mount Laurel despite lots of headwinds. Um and I think that's because we had a coordinated strategy of organizing legal action and policy work in which we looked for opportunities uh that despite really really challenging currents allowed us to really um make a lot of advances and because of this new law that other people have already already mentioned uh
• 43:30 - 44:00 that we we were of us were all involved in passing last year. We have an opportunity to build and preserve more affordable homes in New Jersey than ever before, but it's going to take a big collaborative effort to make that happen. So, so what is that opportunity? Um, you know, we won this big, this is from the bill signing last year, uh, this big movement, uh, that invol that really built over a lot of different
• 44:00 - 44:30 work we did, um, in the Christ administration over COVID and working on things like the Fair Chance and Housing Act, which limits the use of criminal background screenings in practically all housing in New Jersey. uh creative finance tools like the the money that we were able to get Governor Murphy to dedicate uh during COVID to affordable housing production and uh we we are part of that fight to keep uh keep the the trust fund from being raided right now which is which is incredibly important. um you know but this this all laid out
• 44:30 - 45:00 this framework to uh to strengthen the Mount Laurel doctrine and I'll get into the next slide exactly what that means but this year into next year is really the time when towns as Janelle was mentioning all have to come up with updated housing plans um and actually figure out how they're going to create and more affordable housing and preserve existing affordable housing um and use resources uh certainly A lot of the resources that we've talked about being cut are negative impact, but there's
• 45:00 - 45:30 also resources that exist outside of that system. We have local housing trust funds. We have local zoning tools that are all impacted by the system. Um that it that exists sort of I wouldn't say outside of all all of the federal cuts, but in in a in a universe that is that is less impacted by by these cuts and and is a real opportunity. Um I also think we have a real opportunity because everyone is talking about housing right now. I mean, I people who are watching watching the discussion in the governor's race right now, even in the
• 45:30 - 46:00 presidential race last year, housing is a central issue in a way that it hasn't been historically. And I think that this is a real opportunity to um advance these policies. And and you know, it's something that we hear, I mean, we've always been an organization that's very much rooted in organizing. And you know, I think a lot of the groups that we've always worked with have been like, oh, housing is like one issue among many. But we're hearing from faith leaders, from people in black and brown communities, people with disabilities, people at risk of displacement. You know, this is the biggest issue for us
• 46:00 - 46:30 right now. And part of that is, you know, housing prices have increased to a ridiculous degree. Um, but it also creates a real opportunity to do something. So, what is the specific thing that we won last year? Uh, basically 440 towns in New Jersey, that's a a record number, are now in the in the process of coming up with housing plans. Um, and we are now at a point where all the towns know what their what their fair share numbers are and what they have to do. And so by June, they
• 46:30 - 47:00 have to file plans. This is a huge opportunity. Um, and then after that, there's basically a nine-month process for refining those for people to organize on a local level for local um nonprofit developers, emerging developers. tell you is doing amazing job uh organizing um to to get involved in these plans and to to advance visions of how they can use some of these municipal housing trust funds, how they can, you know, use use these kinds of land use changes. Um because towns are
• 47:00 - 47:30 on the hook for actually having to create their fair share. And one of the big wins we had is, you know, it's a much more tight process that eliminates a lot of the yearslong delays that we we saw with, you know, endless litigation and makes much clear what towns have to do. And so basically every community in New Jersey right now, there is a conversation going on along among the elected officials, among people on planning boards. And something I think is really important for funders, especially, you know, focused geographically funders, is like how are
• 47:30 - 48:00 you supporting the groups that you're working with to get engaged in these conversations because they're happening and there's a real opportunity right now and over the next next year to really engage in that those conversations and advance uh opportunities for creating and preserving affordable housing. Um, and how who's involved in that? How do we do that? Critically, it's all about organizing as a space, community engagement, uh developing good plans, building affordable homes, and also I I really want to highlight the importance of keeping what we have, uh
• 48:00 - 48:30 and extending. We have a lot of homes in New Jersey that are at risk of losing affordability. And one of the things towns can do is preserve those homes to meet their obligations. Um and there's still uh real opportunities to to do that with with state and federal funding. It's one of the things that so far has been less cut. We'll see how that plays out. But um but I you know and and I think that these are all really really critical opportunities right now. Um there's resources we'll share afterwards. You know we've been
• 48:30 - 49:00 developing toolkits for local advocates. What does this process work? How does it work? And also our work on tenants screening. How do we make sure that people are not unfairly screened out when they uh when they are exiting criminal justice system. Um, and I hope we have some time for for questions. I know we're we're tight on time and really look forward happy to follow up uh with any of you as is my my colleague Emily Rubenson uh who is on as well and and uh who has a great job pulling all
• 49:00 - 49:30 this stuff together. Uh thanks a lot. Thanks for convening this and look forward to following up with you. Thank you so much Adam and thank you Emily for joining us also. Um, we're going to this has just been a wonderful conversation and I want to go ahead and open it up now to all of your questions. So, if you can come off mute if you're able to join us on camera, that would be great for this part of the conversation. Uh, and please feel free to just unmute and chime in with your comments or
• 49:30 - 50:00 questions. Anybody have any I I think we're all stunned stunned into silence. Um but uh there are a ton of questions and and Lucia as you know we have been having these conversations among the funders about about the the data um which came
• 50:00 - 50:30 up in a lot of your conversations. So, um I I don't know if any of you certainly the state people um and Alisa I'm not sure how much visibility you have into the state exactly but um there are a lot of state experts here. So the question I guess is you know is is something being built is there is there a clearing house a center uh of data collection being built that funders could get behind? That's a question that we've been kicking around a lot and um
• 50:30 - 51:00 we certainly don't have any intention of um uh reinventing the wheel. So, we'd love to get on board if you know of things that are already in process. Thanks. So I think one of the things that at DCA we've been working on and are working on right now is you know trying to find ways to you know unify the data that
• 51:00 - 51:30 exists in a lot of different places. You know we are in New Jersey we're fortunate to have a homelessness management information system that covers the whole state and um most of the counties are using the same system. others are uploading to it but where we have a lot of that data joined and that's also where we've been able to place at the state a lot of our um information around our eviction prevention um we have also at the state you know in addition to our um you know uh 25,000 housing choice
• 51:30 - 52:00 vouchers as I mentioned we you know through other state funded voucher programs we are um have data on about 40,000 households that we are supporting with rents every month. So there's a lot of data right there. But then we also have our partners at, you know, Department of Human Services who have Medicaid, SNAP data, etc. And again, we've been able to um, you know, through our utility assistance program, we, you know, automatically take information
• 52:00 - 52:30 from people who are eligible for SNAP, for some of the um, other DHS programs and bring them onto that program. As you can imagine, however, sharing this data together um involves a lot ofus and attorney review and it is um it can be a very uh slow and slody process and in some ways that makes a lot of sense because this is very important data for people. We don't want to, you know, treat it dismissively. And also,
• 52:30 - 53:00 frankly, right now with the way that the um federal government is looking at a at a lot of data, you see why some of this data is, you know, kept in separate places and is protected very strongly. And we want to keep up with that. At the same time though, anything we we can do to make sure we know as much about who's out there, etc., as possible, and what the potential impacts are going to be, we want to do. So, we are working on that. But I think that's something that we need that we definitely can use a lot
• 53:00 - 53:30 of support from. I know Taisa and Monarch have been very supportive with us in gathering a lot of this data as of some you know some of our nonprofits etc. But I the other thing I will say is data tends to be the piece of the um of the work that when you've got to drop something that gets dropped. Again, that makes sense. If your choice is to upload data about someone or get them in a safe bed for the night, you're going to make that choice. But knowing what we do
• 53:30 - 54:00 about how important this is, I think that's something that we've really got to think about and plan for, which is as there are funding cuts, as there are staffing cuts, as we have less and less to try and do more and more, this is a piece that sometimes gets left behind. and even by you know you know funders at you know federal state level can often be seen sometimes as like oh you're funding you know we have a you know we have a data center we have a you know a head of a director of data on our staff
• 54:00 - 54:30 and that's something that we've had to really justify because those are funds that are going there that could go someplace else so I think also that like just helping us kind of make the case for how important it is to be able to gather this data to have people are, you know, our partners who are the best at providing good data with us, good actionable data that's reliable, that's real time are those whose funding is robust enough that they can have people whose job is to do that. When people
• 54:30 - 55:00 have to do it, you know, on the off the side of their desk as they are um, you know, doing all the other things they have to do, that's when it becomes harder when the data lags, when the reports aren't as robust. So I think it's just you know the to the extent we can really stress how important it is and how useful this data is and make sure that we can keep it in the budgets. I think that's something that is really um you know really an important task for all of us and I would thank you sorry
• 55:00 - 55:30 really quickly just two seconds add in that there are since when we had the federal funding freeze there were a number of different organizations that were trying to collect organizational level data about impacts to budgets and um like program level uh not necessarily uh the individuals that are being served. So there's a a couple of different iterations of that that have been happening with different agencies. There is no collective statewide process that has been effective of gathering all of that though. So it is a very fragmented system unfortunately right
• 55:30 - 56:00 now. Thank you Tisa and thank you Janelle. Um we have time for one more question. We have one in the chat which I think is a good one about Medicaid and the housing uh waiver. So that would allow Medicaid dollars to be used for housing services. I think a lot of organizations are really excited about that. Any update on that threats to that? Do we think that's still going to continue as an opportunity? Now, I don't know if you want to take I know I was like tell you say you or me,
• 56:00 - 56:30 but I think both of us really I I'll do really quickly and just say um you know our our continuum of our homeless planning systems have really been pivoting towards this space where Medicaid is going to be the primary payer of a lot of the housing support services that in our systems that have been underfunded for a very long time. So there's been a lot of work around pivoting to this new way of doing business so that we can have more supports in our system. And so the threats to Medicaid are a really big challenge um because there is no backup
• 56:30 - 57:00 alternative source for funding the supports and this is paying for right now in New Jersey. It's going to be paying for housing navigation services and also housing services to help keep people in housing as well as I think a limited amount to help do upgrades and units to help uh people stay in their homes. So the Medicaid cuts are are inteed with the housing piece right now in New Jersey. Okay, I think we'll have to leave it at
• 57:00 - 57:30 that. Um, it's a great lesson that housing is healthcare and health care is housing and the issues that we all care about are connected and we need to advocate for the preservation of these resources so that we can do the creative things that we know need to be to to be done. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over. Can I just add Oh, yeah. Lisa. Yep. Question on this, but I just want to, you know, from all everything that all the speakers have said, I just want
• 57:30 - 58:00 to double tap on this piece is um the thinking forward of the now two years, four years, 10 years down the line. And part of that work takes funding, policy, advocacy, organizing, people power building to do that advocacy work within the state. New Jersey is a critical state in the nation. um that you all need to keep an eye on and and part of that is the preserving watching what's going on with this immediate, but don't forget about
• 58:00 - 58:30 the organizing work that's going to need to happen in order to protect your state um in order to make your dollars really go further for what you're hoping to do here. Here, Lisa, uh I think many of us couldn't agree more. Uh thank you for that. I'm gonna turn it over to Teresa to close us out. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you all of the panelists. This was a really um good conversation. A lot of um stark information, but information important to share. Um this has been
• 58:30 - 59:00 recorded, so you'll be able to uh tap into it and listen to it again. There'll be a second audience. This will be um behind the the membership um curtain. So so folks will be able to hear it. I also want to let you know before we close out about some upcoming um programs and events to help you do