La Casa de Don Pedro President and CEO Peter T. Rosario recently added his voice to a growing chorus of New Jersey housing advocates in support of new federal legislation designed to expand affordable and workforce housing near major transit hubs.
Rosario provided a statement in response to the introduction of the Transit-Oriented Housing Development Act, federal legislation that would create more than two million new housing units nationwide and invest $300 billion over ten years into the national Housing Trust Fund, with a focus on affordable homes near rail stations and bus corridors.
For Rosario, the bill is not an abstract policy question. It is a reflection of the daily reality of the families La Casa de Don Pedro serves in Newark’s Lower Broadway neighborhood.
“Newark is a transit-rich city, and too many of our families have been priced out of the neighborhoods they built,” Rosario said. “In Lower Broadway, only 15 percent of residents own a car, yet many live too far from Broad Street Station to walk to it. This legislation would help communities like ours build workforce housing where working families need it most: close to the trains and buses that connect them to jobs, school, and opportunity.”
La Casa de Don Pedro serves more than 50,000 Newark and Essex County residents annually for nearly than 55 years, providing early childhood education, housing counseling, immigration legal services, workforce development, and bilingual mental health care. Housing stability is central to the organization’s mission, and LCDP’s HUD-approved Housing Counseling program works directly with low- and moderate-income Essex County families to achieve and maintain safe, affordable housing.
Expanding the supply of affordable homes near transit is one of the most direct ways to address the housing instability that LCDP sees in its community every day. Families who cannot afford to live near the jobs and services they depend on face longer commutes, higher transportation costs, and greater instability, all of which compound the economic pressures that make self-sufficiency harder to achieve.
La Casa de Don Pedro will continue to follow this legislation and advocate alongside our community for policies that expand access to safe, stable, and affordable housing for Newark’s families.
