Most vulnerable could become homeless if NJ Legislature fails to extend aid, advocates say

Thousands of the most vulnerable New Jerseyans — seniors and low-income individuals with disabilities — could be at risk of becoming homeless as a pot of money aimed at housing them for more time is coming to an end next February, more than 40 homeless shelters, nonprofits and social service providers wrote in a letter to legislative leadership.

The signatories are urging Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin to quickly pass a bill, S3960/A5549, during the lame-duck legislative session that would extend the lifetime limit of emergency assistance for five more years for four groups of people at risk of homelessness or currently experiencing homelessness: permanently disabled individuals, those over 60 years old, chronically unemployable people, or a relative of a disabled child who requires full-time care.

“If any one of these people become homeless, these are the very toughest people to rehouse," said Connie Mercer, CEO of the New Jersey Coalition to End Homelessness. "In many ways it is even more disastrous in their life than it is for anyone else to become homeless.”

Emergency assistance helps those who already rely on welfare — WorkFirst NJ — or on Social Security income with things like emergency shelter, temporary hotel placements, utility payments or temporary rental assistance. Those vulnerable individuals can receive up to a year of help, with the opportunity to extend the help twice for six months.

“These benefits can be used in shelters like ours,” said Shannon Muti, director of programs and services at Homeless Solutions in Morris County. “We’re one of the few shelters that don’t kick people out when they use up their benefits, which can hurt us sometimes.

"We rely on those payments in order to keep the doors open, the lights on, and staff there keeping everybody safe," Muti said. "Emergency assistance allows us to keep functioning in a way that’s sustainable.”

Richard McGrath, a spokesperson for Senate Democrats, said "the bill is under active consideration for action in the Senate during lame duck," and Rhonda Schaffler, Coughlin's spokesperson, said, "It's a bill that will be reviewed and considered as all legislation is during this time."

Extended assistance ends in February

In 2018, Gov. Phil Murphy signed into a law a measure that allowed these four groups another five years of assistance, with the provision expiring in February 2024.

“This provision was included based on the presumption that New Jersey would end homelessness for this population within five years,” the letter signatories wrote. “Unfortunately, in part due to the havoc wreaked by the pandemic, homelessness in New Jersey has not ended, but grown!

"The severe shortage of affordable housing for very low-income people, not to mention those who are permanently disabled or chronically unemployable, makes the extension of this benefit more necessary than ever if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences,” the letter says.

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The Legislature has not analyzed how many people the measure would help or how much it would cost. In 2018, the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services estimated that 1,070 New Jerseyans needed the assistance, at a price tag of $5.3 million a year, compared with 3,000 people in 2015, which cost about $5,000 per person, or $15 million.

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The annual Point-in-Time count of those experiencing homelessness — an imperfect measurement that almost certainly is an undercount — shows that homelessness is increasing. The survey found 9,303 unhoused people on one night in 2018, a number that rose to 10,267 people on one night in 2023.

The state’s Office of Homelessness Prevention calculates that nearly 17,900 New Jerseyans were staying in hotels or homeless shelters and there were 7,669 unsheltered individuals during the first 10 months of 2023.

When homeless advocate Steve Leder was a managing attorney at the Community Health Law Project, most of his emergency assistance cases involved helping people pay back the rent they owed so they could avoid being evicted. Other times, his clients were waiting two to three years for Social Security determinations or other aid, such as a housing voucher, to come through, so they needed help during that waiting period.

The one-year cap was enacted in New Jersey in 1997, and different administrations took different approaches to the program.

Christie, Murphy veto aid programs

For a period, governors continually reauthorized pilot programs that provided aid to low-income families after they exhausted welfare payments. In 2015, Republican Gov. Chris Christie eliminated the pilot programs and conditionally vetoed a bill that would have permanently extended the aid.

“When we lost this aid for a period of time, it caused incredible hardship,” said Maura Sanders, chief counsel for Legal Services of New Jersey. “We had people with significant disabilities who lost housing, had to be hospitalized and institutionalized in some cases, after losing their housing situation.

"Others lost access to treatment opportunities and other services," Sanders said. "Losing their homes compounded and made things worse.”

Legislators sent the permanent extension bill to Murphy, but the Democratic governor also conditionally vetoed the bill, arguing that the assistance was not meant to be permanent. Lawmakers passed the bill again, with Murphy’s edits that included the five-year extension in place today.

Months later, Murphy, citing budget concerns, vetoed another bill that would have expanded the assistance, prohibiting the Department of Human Services from considering aid a person received more than seven years earlier when considering whether the person is eligible for funds.

“We need to really get a much more permanent situation so they aren’t always at risk,” Leder said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Vulnerable could end up homeless if NJ Legislature fails to extend aid