Executive Summary

The Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness (The Alliance) is a collaboration of government agencies, non-profit organizations, elected officials, corporations, congregations, community groups, and individuals who have banded together to create comprehensive strategies to end homelessness in our community within ten years.

Our mission is to ensure that every resident of Mercer County has access to permanent, affordable, and safe housing. Our first objective is to prevent homelessness, and then ultimately to end it. The Alliance aims to make every Mercer resident aware of the societal and economic impact that poverty and homelessness have on our community and asks that each of us becomes involved in resolving the issues that create it.

According to the study conducted by the Homeless Resource Advisory Committee (HRAC) of the Mercer County Human Services Advisory Council, over the course of a year, more than 3,000 men, women, and children receive services in the homeless system. In fact, Trenton has the one of the highest rate of family homelessness in the nation.

Equally disturbing is a 2003 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition that cites New Jersey as one of the least affordable states in the country for the last four years. The report goes on to note that no one earning minimum wage can afford housing in Mercer County without working almost 22 hours a day, seven days a week to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

For a healthy community, simply providing shelter for the homeless is not enough. Many more families are on the edge –a paycheck or a family crisis away from homelessness. Those living doubled up, in unhealthy conditions, and/or paying 50-75% of income for rent are at constant risk. Most research shows that a family of four needs twice the federal poverty level, or $36,000, to be economically self-sufficient. Yet 42% of New Jersey households earn less than $30,000 (2003 Consolidated Plan of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs).

For the past two decades, government and private agencies have dedicated a massive amount of time, energy, and monetary resources to alleviate the problem. While agencies manage homelessness by providing food, clothing, and shelter to homeless families and singles, and by eventually moving them into stable housing, they have not been able to prevent homelessness or remedy the systemic issues which are the root cause. In fact, the incidence of homelessness and the number of people affected by it continues to escalate relentlessly.

Housing in Mercer County is extraordinarily expensive. The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2003 “Out of Reach Report” states the average rent is $973 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. Housing in the $500-$700 range tends to be severely substandard, in dangerous neighborhoods, with problems of infestation, leaking roofs, lead paint, and asbestos.

Housing in Mercer County is expensive, because it is so scarce. Since the early 1990’s, affordable housing stock in Trenton has decreased by more than 6% a year. While some new affordable housing has been built in Mercer County, it is primarily for those earning more than $40,000. Those earning less than $30,000 represent 42% of households and have few, if any, decent housing options. They often resort to living with others, enduring dangerous or unsafe housing conditions, or spending more than 70% of their disposable income on housing costs. Most risk imminent homelessness.

In April 2003, over 100 community leaders came together with a mission and passionate commitment to end homelessness in Mercer County. In the following six months, the Alliance developed a ten-year plan that delineates our step-by-step approach. This plan was created with the input and expertise of a wide range of participating agencies and has been endorsed by Alliance members.

The causes of homelessness must be addressed both systemically and tactically. We must transition from managing homelessness to developing and implementing strategies that will end it. Changes need to be made across the entire community, focusing not just on services to the homeless, but on the factors that contribute to the problem. Working together we will prevent and end homelessness in a strategic way.