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financial obligations. You have to remember, rental assistance came late in this pandemic and, not only that, the pace in which that assistance was and is being distributed is slower than expected.
The unfortunate reality about those negotiations was that some tenant advocates came at this from the perspective that landlords should simply shoulder the financial
burden of providing free housing in perpetuity, which, quite frankly, is not sustainable. Bills like “The People’s Bill,” which mandated 30-month repayment periods, were myopic
and would have been devastating for landlords. Candidly, such policies would have put our entire rental housing market in a downward spiral.
I feel that NJAA approached the negotiations from the perspective of both landlords and tenants. Clearly, we wanted to protect the industry, but we had to keep the tenants’ perspective in mind as they are
our customers, and without them, our industry doesn’t survive. But
at the end of the day, we needed a date certain as to when the eviction moratorium would end, and we needed financial assistance.
As an aside, the key flaw in New
Jersey’s eviction moratorium was that it wasn’t based on need or COVID impact. It was simply a blanket moratorium. I think most landlords understood that tenants who were truly impacted by the pandemic
were struggling and needed help. They understood that aspect of the moratorium. But at the same time, there were many landlords who told me horror stories of tenants who simply refused to pay “because government told them so” or
worse, people making hundreds of thousands of dollars easily exploited the moratorium. Simply put, there was no means test. I hope that in the future, if broad-based policies such as this are ever instituted, there will be a requirement to demonstrate need. That way, government can fulfil its mission of helping the most vulnerable without opening the door to fraud and exploitation.
Regardless of our position or the tenant advocates’ position, the only way we would ever get to a workable statute was if there was leadership. And Sen. Stack demonstrated that leadership. While neither side
got everything they wanted, the
final product was a workable and pragmatic solution.
With respect to rental assistance, how is the process working and is it getting out to the tenants and landlords who need it? Also, how is New Jersey’s program compared to other states?
Nationwide, only about 25 percent
of the rental assistance provided
to the states and localities by
the federal government has been distributed. That is due to a
number of factors. First, there are significant restrictions as to how that money can be disbursed. Second, governments needed to develop the necessary infrastructure to get that money out. You can’t simply receive hundreds of millions of dollars and expect to properly distribute that money without a sophisticated infrastructure. There needed to be checks and balances or the states and localities could be penalized.
One benefit New Jersey had was that due to the leadership of Senate President Steve Sweeney and Sen. Stack, who authored a bill that established a rental assistance program very early on in the pandemic, we ended up creating that infrastructure months before
REALESTATENJTM 31 the federal rental assistance even
started. While the bill was vetoed, Gov. Phil Murphy established a $100 million rental assistance program that mirrored what the Legislature had requested. This enabled the State of New Jersey to build the infrastructure that would eventually be used to administer rental assistance throughout the pandemic. While the governor and the Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver deserve the ultimate credit for creating the program and the corresponding infrastructure, we should also recognize that this would not have happened but for the efforts of the Legislature.
When you look at how New Jersey distributed the first tranche of federal rental assistance, we were in the top five states in the country as it pertains to meeting expectations. Having said that, disbursement of those funds could be faster, and my number one criticism of the current program is the use of a lottery system. In New Jersey, you apply for rental assistance, you get preliminary approval, you get secondary approval, then you go
into a lottery and wait. Once you are picked out of that lottery, you get final approval and only then is the money distributed. I see no reason for the lottery system, and I think
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