Woodbridge Mayor Gives More Info. About Homeless Apartment Building Coming To Hopelawn

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — At the Tuesday night Council meeting, Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac addressed the homeless housing apartment building coming to Hopelawn.

This will be a 28-unit apartment building owned and operated by the Raritan Bay Area YMCA. The building will consist of 28 apartments, with 40 beds total. Each unit will have its own kitchen.

The town is declining to reveal where exactly in Hopelawn this will be located.

The intention is this will be permanent housing for people who are homeless, or have lost their homes in a fire or flood, said the mayor.

Woodbridge Township is not building the building; the building is being built by a private developer. The developer originally intended it to be a 28-unit market-rate apartment rental building, said McCormac.

However, for reasons that are unknown, that did not go as planned.

The Raritan Bay Area YMCA stepped in to say they would buy the building and run it as homeless housing, for people from Woodbride and Perth Amboy.

To that end, Woodbridge and the city of Perth Amboy are contributing funds to help the YMCA purchase the building: Woodbridge Twp. is contributing $3.7 million to help the YMCA purchase the building. The money is coming out of the town's affordable housing trust fund, said McCormac. The city of Perth Amboy will contribute about $1 million towards the purchase, he said.

"This is not a homeless shelter. It never was planned to be. It's not," McCormac stressed at the Tuesday night Council meeting. He said this Patch article that first called it a homeless "shelter" was "very irresponsible."

McCormac said he first told the public about this in his March 30 State of the Township.

"We bragged about this. I think it's wonderful what's happening here. We're putting permanent supportive housing," he said. "People can't just show up and say 'I need a room.' Everybody in that facility will have a lease and they'll be permanent residents until they move out, and then someone else will come in who qualifies."

"What I said in the State of the Township speech was it's for people in need, and for 'emergency homeless,' which means a fire. We just saw 16 families who in seconds lost their homes (referring to the Woodbridge Center apartments fire last week). There's been floods."

"This is for housing-vulnerable families, people with chronic illnesses, emergency displacements," he said.

The building will be run by the YMCA and will have social services on site, such as help with finding a job, overcoming an addiction, mental health help, etc.

While Steve Jobin, president/CEO of the Raritan Bay Area YMCA, did previously say women fleeing domestic violence could be housed there, McCormac said the building "is not intended to be for domestic violence victims. That doesn't mean they can't be placed there ... but it's not built for that."

"It's a wonderful thing for Woodbridge; I wish we could do more of them," said McCormac. "People in need need a place to live ... They come out of Raritan Bay Medical Center and have nowhere to go. Those people might get housing here."

"It's not a homeless shelter; I don't want to hear every two weeks that it is," he continued. "This is a wonderful facility for Woodbridge Township. When we had the opportunity, we jumped on it. If someone came in with another one, we would jump on it. We need places like this for people in need."

Watch McCormac talk about this at the April 21 Council meeting; starting at 40:40:

First Patch report on this: Woodbridge Plans To Open Homeless Housing In Hopelawn Section (April 6)

Homeless Housing In Hopelawn Will Not Be A 'Shelter,' Will Be Permanent Housing, YMCA Says (April 8)