President & CEO Matthew Reilly on the Garden State’s affordable housing prowess
Our northeastern neighbors in Connecticut are getting around to wrestling with urban/suburban affordable housing issues. The South Central Regional Council of Government (SCROG) recently voted unanimously to establish a committee that would work to develop a 15-town strategy to tackle affordable housing.
Not to brag, but New Jersey recognized these problems 44 years ago. Our hats are off to the New Jersey Supreme Court, the Fair Share Housing Center, all of us here at MEND organization and all the other N.J. nonprofit affordable housing groups and good-faith municipalities who started working on these issues five decades ago.
Perhaps we have not come as far and accomplished as much as we all set out to do after the “Mount Laurel” decision in 1975, but we are rightfully proud of all the progress we have made since that time. We still have a steep road to climb. But I think we should give ourselves a big pat on the back for New Jersey’s pioneering efforts in these matters. We are obviously light years ahead of many other states.