1. Our first issue is HOUSING. Much of New Jersey’s housing is unaffordable even to the middle class. Meanwhile people living in poverty struggle to find a place to live in overcrowded center cities and in deteriorating older suburbs. While home prices go through the roof and new developments are being built for the rich, the region’s fastest growing and wealthiest towns have effectively kept out the poor. You may ask, “How can this be? Aren’t towns in New Jersey required by the Mount Laurel law to build affordable housing in their midst?”

Yes, but there is a loophole in the law. It allows the wealthiest and fastest-growing communities to keep out poor people by making a cash payment to low-income towns, so that the houses are built or rehabilitated there instead of in the wealthy communities. In fact, using Regional Contribution Agreements (referred to as RCA’s), hundreds of affordable homes have been sent from towns in some of the wealthiest areas of Morris, Bergen and Burlington Counties to low income towns in Essex, Camden, Passaic, Mercer and Cumberland Counties. This must stop!

2. Our second issue is PROPERTY TAXES & SCHOOL FUNDING. We know that the communities and taxpayers in middle-class and low-income towns need real relief though fundamental reform, not gimmicks and political grandstanding. Our towns are all struggling to keep their schools going, but we want to keep our rising taxes from driving people out of town or into poverty.

Inaction by our legislators for three decades has left our people caught in a vicious cycle of having to either pay increased schools costs -- and see our taxes go sky-high -- or freeze our school budgets.

Every year a choice is made between ensuring the quality of our children’s education and controlling property taxes. We need school funding reform that will guarantee to all towns the resources they need for educating their children. Not just the cities but the many suburbs that now have diverse school populations but get little help from the state.

Clearly, affordable housing reform and property tax reform are closely related. High property tax rates make housing less affordable for everyone. More and more middle-class and working families, especially seniors and young families, are being priced out of their own homes because of rising property taxes. Furthermore, funding schools through local property taxes creates a powerful incentive for wealthy towns to exclude low-income families, often through RCA’s. Why? Because low-income families send children to the schools, but don’t provide as much in property taxes as families living in McMansions. We need to fix the whole system!

Special note on Atlantic City: While we are on the topic of property tax reform we wish to add one special note about Atlantic City, where we are being so graciously hosted today. This is a city with many hardworking families that are the backbone of the casino industry. However in addition to being punished by the state’s property tax and school funding system, Atlantic City’s working families are threatened with a property tax reassessment that would triple or quadruple property taxes and drive out already struggling families. In an unprecedented show of unity, New Jersey Regional Coalition members from Atlantic City are fighting to stop the reassessment from further punishing and driving out Atlantic City’s working families.

3. Our third issue is EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY for all New Jersey residents. Many towns in New Jersey are experiencing rapid growth from immigrant populations. Many of these immigrant families are poor, but they work, pay taxes, spend their money in our retail establishments; and contribute to the economic vibrancy of the state. Their children go through our public school system, but often cannot afford a college education because they are denied the lower in-state tuition rates available to all other New Jersey residents. Why? Because of their parents’ immigration status. This approach is short-sighted!

Recycling our children back into poverty by denying them an education has never helped anyone, or any community! We need a system that not only allows, but encourages, all families to send their kids to college to lift them out of poverty through education.

1. Communities and taxpayers in middle-class and low-income towns need real property tax relief and more equitable education funding, through fundamental reform, this year, now!

2. We need fair housing rules that will encourage diverse, stable and healthy communities, not segregated and distressed ones. Start by abolishing RCA’s, now!

3. We need a system of higher education that serves all of the state’s children. Provide in-state tuition for New Jersey resident children of immigrants, now!