Advocates welcomed an extra $51 million in federal rental assistance for New Jersey, money that will help pay rent owed by families facing eviction due to the pandemic’s impact on their jobs and health. “It can be literally life-changing to get that money, because it can stop evictions. It can keep people in their homes,” said attorney Allison Nolan.
The extra money could help up to 4,600 families stave off homelessness. The bad news — that’s less than 10% of the more than 50,000 applicants still on a waiting list 10 months after the pandemic-related eviction moratorium ended. “The people who are on that waiting list … we don’t know what their situations are … Many of them have probably already been evicted,” said Diane Smith, managing attorney at the Housing Justice Project, Seton Hall University Law School.
