New Jersey Residents Assisted By $170M For Rentals, Utilities

By Elyse Kelly | The Center Square contributor, The Center Square New Jersey

(The Center Square) – New Jersey residents having trouble paying rent or utilities will see $170 million heading toward rental and utility assistance programs.

The Garden State is allocating the funds from unspent American Rescue Plan Act money. In addition to help with rent and utilities, the state intends to use some of it to create an eviction protection program.

“At the end of the day, when a financial crisis strikes, people just need money — and that’s where these financial assistance programs are coming in and prevent eviction across the state,” Christina Tello, director of Housing Outreach at the Affordable Housing Alliance, told The Center Square.

When COVID-19 hit, people lost jobs and the number of people with insecure housing increased. Other eviction-prevention measures like the moratorium on evictions have run out, leaving many New Jersey residents vulnerable, said Kathleen Kerr, director of Utility Assistance at AHA.

“What we found a lot was people who had never had difficulty paying their bills all of a sudden found themselves unable to pay their bills,” Kerr told The Center Square.

On the utilities side, there are assistance programs for different income levels, some of them going quite high, according to Kerr. “A lot of times people think, well there’s just no program to help them — they think, well I make too much money,” she said. But that is not the case, she added.

The Home Energy Assistance Program offers aid to residents with up to 60% of the state’s median income or a household of four making up to $77,272, while a state program called the Universal Service Fund is available to households making up to $106,000.

“There’s thousands of dollars or probably millions of dollars in assistance available to help utility customers with those past due bills from COVID through the American Rescue Plan,” Kerr said.
On top of pandemic-related issues, many New Jersey residents have become unable to afford their homes because of gentrification or New Yorkers willing to pay much more looking for a cheaper place to live than the five boroughs, according to Tello. “That has been a major obstacle,” she said.

There are financial and rental assistance programs available to many of those people. In Monmouth County, the Emergency Rental Assistance Program provides up to $30,000 for arrears, late fees and temporary housing, and provides up to three months future rent payment. Ocean County’s Residential Emergency Rental Assistance Program provides a maximum of 15 months arrears and three months of future rent, or up to $45,000 total. Another ERAP program in Monmouth County provides both utility and rental assistance.

For most of these programs, residents who make up to 80% of area median income will qualify, and in some cases, residents making more can also qualify, according to Tello.

“There is definitely a need, and I think the State of New Jersey has done a great job modifying programs to protect the consumers from disconnects and make sure there’s adequate assistance programs available to help them,” Kerr said.

The focus of the work of The Center Square New Jersey is state and local-level government and economic reporting that approaches stories with a taxpayer sensibility.