Strategic Partners

 In 2009, a group of residents and stakeholder organizations, including Isles Inc., Homefront, Habitat for Humanity of Trenton, A Better Way, Urban Promise Trenton, and Play Soccer Nonprofit International, along with New Jersey Community Capital, and CAPC as its real estate subsidiary, came together as the East Trenton Collaborative around a shared vision of a revitalized East Trenton.

Together, they wrote the East Trenton Vision Plan that was endorsed by New Jersey’s Department of Community Affairs under the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program, which brought more resources to support both the physical revitalization of the neighborhood and support services for East Trenton residents. The plan was updated in 2015 to better reflect the current neighborhood context.

The ETC creates quality homes, supports homeownership, provides recreational and educational activities for neighbors of all ages, and promotes economic opportunity.

For the past two years, CAPC has been working with the Essex Community Land Trust  to increase the amount of permanently affordable housing in Essex County. The partnership has consistently received funding from the Cornerstone Housing Innovation Partnership in support of this collaboration and to foster the creation of long-term affordable homeownership.

CAPC and the ECLT were recently awarded $690,000 by the New Jersey State Department of Community Affairs to purchase and rehabilitate seven units of foreclosed abandoned housing, returning the homes to active use. CAPC and the ECLT have used this subsidy to support the purchase of three two-family and one single-family home in Bloomfield, New Jersey. The funds awarded are part of a multi-pronged approach to helping stabilize communities with high rates of abandonment and foreclosure. These homes will bring much needed quality affordable housing to the area. CAPC’s partnership with ECLT also serves as a model for how collaboration can expand the availability of multiple models of affordable housing, making homeownership possible for more families in New Jersey.

Targeting Newark’s South Ward, the Family Village Initiative will test the extent to which healthy housing makes a difference in the health and economic potential of very-low-income families in a severely deprived community. Organizations including South Ward Children’s Alliance, RWJ-Barnabas Health Systems, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Victoria Foundation, Brick Academy, and CAPC will team up to create opportunities that include quality affordable housing, strong educational programming, financial literacy training, healthcare, and wraparound social services in order to achieve economic stability and improve life outcomes.

As part of our role in FVI, CAPC is acquiring 48 units of foreclosed and/or abandoned South Ward housing. Properties will be identified with other FVI partners, which will allow a focus on properties that are creating the most negative impact in the South Ward today. Working with local contractors, these properties will be rehabilitated and managed by CAPC as one, two and three-family affordable quality rental housing units for families under 80% of AMI with an additional focus on families living under 50% AMI.

In 2013, CAPC completed a nine property rehab project in Plainfield, NJ. The project, which entailed both interior and exterior improvements, added over $100,000 in improvements per home. The concentration of properties within one square mile increased the impact and made a substantial dent in the vacant housing stock in the neighborhood. This project was made possible through partnership with Faith, Bricks, and Mortar, a non-profit affordable housing developer and HUD certified Housing Counseling Agency located in Plainfield.

Additionally, with the help of the Greater Plainfield Habitat for Humanity, CAPC developed a lease purchase program for several of the available homes in Plainfield. As participants in this program, prospective buyers live as renters in the property for 12 to 15 months. During this time, they work with staff at with Greater Plainfield Habitat and other community partners to rebuild their credit and prepare for homeownership.

 The development of CAPC would not have been possible without the ongoing support and partnership with HANDS. Patrick Morrissy, Executive Director of HANDS, created Operation Neighborhood Recovery (ONR), an initiative that raised the debt and equity needed to acquire 47 delinquent mortgages in 2009 with the goal of stabilizing neighborhoods where foreclosure was destroying property values and communities. Through ONR, CAPC was created to be the entity that quickly and efficiently rehabilitated vacant properties and returned them to use as affordable housing.

Since the completion of ONR, CAPC and HANDS have continued to work together to address foreclosures and vacancy while also bringing more affordable housing to Essex County. Most recently HANDS and CAPC have partnered to rehabilitate an abandoned hat factory in the Valley Arts District of Orange, NJ. The project consists of a six story building and a three story building built in 1907 and 1864, respectively. HANDS and CAPC plan to convert this former-factory into 32 residential condominiums, including 27 two-bedroom units, four one-bedroom units, and one three-bedroom unit. The converted space will also contain up to 18 artist work spaces on three levels of the building to be sold to unit buyers or rented to other artists in the community.

CAPC has partnered extensively with the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District to address the housing challenges in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Newark. Over the next five years, CAPC and LPCCD plan to complete more than 50 units of housing in the surrounding area, including 18 condominiums and 7 townhouses already in development.

Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District and CAPC will be beginning construction this Spring on the first 18 condominiums at 478 and 462 Washington Street. There are 8 affordable one- and two-bedroom units available between the two buildings. The affordable units are priced from $129,000 – $169,000 depending on bedroom count and size. The remaining 10 units are not income restricted and are priced between $179,000 – $235,000.

 

In late 2015, CAPC entered into a partnership with RiverRock Capital Partners to acquire REO properties in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Maryland. These properties are all former HUD/FHA non-performing mortgage notes sold in HUD Neighborhood Stabilization Outcome (NSO) pools through the Distressed Asset Sale Program (DASP).

The goal of the partnership is to acquire approximately 2,000 REOs in these markets over the next two years. To date, the partnership has acquired 850 homes. These properties are rehabbed and primarily sold to owner occupants.

Unity Square, headed by community residents and the Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen, works to empower community members and catalyze change in the poorest residential neighborhood of New Brunswick, NJ. In so doing, Unity Square addresses a diverse set of issues, including economic development, employment, civic participation, crime and safety, immigrants’ rights, and tenants’ rights.

The revitalization of Unity Square is guided by a comprehensive, 10 – year plan, with strategies based in physical development, community organizing, public policy, and human services elements. CAPC’s role includes acquiring and rehabbing affordable homeownership opportunities, creating a pipeline of potential neighborhood homebuyers, and better marketing the neighborhood by promoting safe and healthy housing and aligning city policies with neighborhood housing goals.

CAPC is committed to working with local community builders and contractors on each rehabilitation project. As such, CAPC has been partnering with YouthBuild Newark for the past three years. YouthBuild Newark is steadfastly committed to rebuilding and improving the quality of life in communities through collective work, responsibility, and cooperative economics and developing potential leaders and positive role models. YouthBuild Newark uses affordable housing development as a vehicle to help students increase their opportunities for employment by learning about timeliness, accountability, teamwork, conflict resolution, and project completion.

Since CAPC’s inception, YouthBuild Newark has completed the rehabilitation of 11 units of housing. CAPC continues to work with YouthBuild Newark on the redevelopment of properties in neighborhoods most in need of stabilization and investment. Through these construction projects, CAPC and YouthBuild Newark are educating local youth in the construction trade through apprenticeship placements where students work along side certified and licensed professionals.