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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced Tuesday that the Jersey City Housing Authority (JCHA) has received a $9.7 million HOPE VI revitalization grant for additional work at the A. Harry Moore public housing development on Jersey City’s West Side. JCHA executive director Maria Maio says the HUD grant will also help the JCHA leverage an additional $60 million for the project.

This afternoon, a bevy of local and federal officials, including HUD secretary Shaun Donovan (speaking in the photo above), came together at the project site to herald the development.

“HOPE VI has become one of the nation’s most powerful weapons in fighting concentrated poverty,” Donovan said, pointing out that the program has produced reductions in unemployment and crime rates.

“We are so elated,” said Housing Authority board chair Raj Mukherji. He said the project plans involved an “unprecedented level of community input into the designs.”

The JCHA has already used $5 million from the HOPE VI program, which aims to replace tower-style public housing with more integrated, mixed-use projects, for the first two phases of the A. Harry Moore renovation, according to Maio. Using the federal money — and the additional $35 million it helped leverage — she says the agency demolished 380 housing units in high-rise towers, and developed 144 total units, including 129 affordable units, to replace them. The JCHA also received 180 replacement vouchers in these phases.

This next phase of the project will demolish 277 units, which have been deemed “distressed,” and replace them with 299 total units — 134 on-site and 165 off-site. Of these 299, there will be 10 public housing units, 35 public housing/Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units, 54 LIHTC-only units, 95 project based voucher/LIHTC units, 19 other subsidized rentals, 12 market-rate rentals, 70 HOPE VI affordable homeownership units and 4 other affordable homeownership units.

“To go from being residents of public housing to being homeowners,” said Sen. Bob Menendez. “That’s what I call hope, and that’s what today is all about.”

As part of the plan, the Board of Education will construct and operate a new on-site six-classroom building to house a Pre-K program under its memorandum of understanding with the housing authority. This stems from the Obama administration and HUD’s encouragement to incorporate early childhood education components into their proposals.

The early childhood component “recogniz[es] the connection between housing and opportunity,” Donovan said. “Our children’s hopes and dreams should never be limited by the ZIP code they grew up in.”

This HOPE VI grant is the third one received by the JCHA. When asked why Jersey City has been so successful in competing for the grants, Diane Johnson, director of HUD’s field office in Newark, said “great leadership and capacity” played a large role.

“They know what to ask for, [and] they’re not bashful,” she said. “That’s what it takes to be a strong advocate for the residents.”

The JCHA grant is one of six grants totaling $113.6 million being awarded to housing authorities across the nation. Remarkably, two of the grants were given to New Jersey cities (Trenton received the other), a feat that did not go unnoticed today.

“We would not be standing here if not for the most remarkable Congressional delegation in the country,” said Donovan, referring to Menendez and Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

HUD will monitor the grant regularly in the areas of management, financial operations and physical condition in a process HUD public affairs officer Adam Glantz said was “very much like a report card.” He said if progress were to become unsatisfactory, the federal agency would “provide technical assistance “and “do whatever it takes” to address the problems.

Ward B councilman David Donnelly, saying “affordable quality housing should be a right in this country,” said the changes in public housing represent increased opportunity for some of the city’s poorest citizens.

“I grew up three blocks from here. I remember … when good residents were held hostage by bad residents,” he said. “[But] if you live here now you’ve got a fighting chance.”

Additional reporting by Jon Whiten

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