The bill would allow towns to tack up to $5 on already-existing fees for building permits, licenses, and court and parking fines to create municipal homelessness trust funds. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
Local officials looking to reduce homelessness in their towns would be able to charge new fees to fund affordable housing, rental vouchers, and hotel stays under legislation a New Jersey Assembly panel unanimously advanced Thursday.
Fraying safety nets, the increased criminalization of homelessness, and rising housing costs all prove the need for legislative action, said Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Union), one of the bill’s prime sponsors. Homelessness in New Jersey rose 8% between January 2024 and last January, she added.
“It’s only going to get worse. Let’s be honest, the tariffs that are increasing every day on all our products, the health insurance … increase in electricity, gas costs, everything. It’s important that as a legislature, we address this,” Quijano said.
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The bill, which also lists Sen. Linda Carter (D-Union) as a prime sponsor, would allow local officials to create municipal homelessness trust funds by tacking fees of up to $5 on already-existing fees for building permits, licenses, and court and parking fines. Officials then could draw on the fund to reduce homelessness in their towns by buying, building, or renovating housing projects or units, or funding housing vouchers and supportive services that help people obtain or maintain permanent housing.
Several housing advocates testified Thursday in support of the bill before the Assembly’s housing committee, on which Quijano serves.
“Municipalities desperately need additional tools, and this bill provides exactly that,” said Crystal Charley, policy manager of the Fair Share Housing Center. “With a dedicated municipal fund, towns and cities can fill the gaps in prevention services before residents fall into homelessness, support more flexible rapid-response strategies, expand partnerships with frontline organizations who know their communities best, and develop local housing plans grounded in real data and community-identified priorities.”
Advocates also called on lawmakers to act on other stalled bills that would further protect people who are homeless or at risk of losing their homes, saying the Trump administration’s approach to reducing homelessness instead threatens to worsen it.
President Trump framed homelessness as a public safety issue in a July executive order, which mandated heightened enforcement of laws against public camping, loitering, and such offenses, as well as treatment and civil commitments of people whose addiction or mental health disorders contributed to their homelessness.
At a rally before Thursday’s hearing, advocates urged lawmakers to:
- Pass a bill that would establish a “Homeless Bill of Rights.” The bill, which is meant to stop officials from fining and incarcerating people who are homeless, has been introduced four times since 2019 and failed to pass.
- Pass another bill that would establish a program in 10 counties to pilot a “code red” policy to better protect homeless people during extreme heat and periods of hazardous air quality. The policy would eventually extend statewide, much like the “code blue” law lawmakers passed in 2017 to protect at-risk people during the winter.
- Restore $80 million lawmakers diverted from the state’s affordable housing trust fund, which supports the construction and preservation of affordable housing, when they approved a $58.8 billion state budget in June.
Legislators initially had diverted $125 million from the trust fund to instead fund assistance for low-income renters and first-generation home buyers, which had previously been separate budget items. The state restored about $45 million over the summer, leaving the fund still $80 million short.
“We want the rest of that money restored to the communities that need affordable homes built,” said Staci Berger, who heads the Housing Community Development Network of New Jersey.
Berger noted that Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill promised during her campaign that she would not divert money from the trust fund.
“We are very much hopeful that this will be a thing of the past, that the diversion of the trust fund will, once and for all, be a page we turn and we don’t look back on,” Berger said.
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