Building from the Ground Up: 20 Years of Community Development in NJ
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For more information, contact: Joseph Picard 609-393-3752 / 732-598-5796
December 10, 2008
TRENTON – The Housing & Community Development Network of New Jersey’s Semi-Annual Membership Meeting, held Wednesday at the Trenton Marriott in Trenton, titled Building from the Ground Up: 20 Years of Community Development in NJ, kicked off the Network’s 20th anniversary year. The event included a retrospective, workshops on winning community development strategies, an awards ceremony and the election of executive board members.
“In addition to our work in strengthening local community development organizations, the Network has been responsible for several pieces of landmark legislation in housing and community development over the years,” said Diane Sterner, the Network’s executive director. “We’ve come a long way, achieved much, and we still have a lot of work to do.”
From a handful of community developers meeting at a diner in Middlesex County in 1987, to the current alliance of over 200 organizations statewide, the Network has left its mark on community development in New Jersey. The Network’s technical assistance and training programs, its local advocacy teams, its lobbying efforts on the local; state and federal levels, its groundbreaking studies and informative newsletters, its fundraising and creative partnerships, its policy goals and successful campaigns, the progressive laws it has helped to craft, shepherd and pass, from rehabilitation reform to the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program, from the State Rental Assistance Program to foreclosure prevention legislation to the housing reforms of A500, for which we are still fighting — the Network has been a beacon and a model for a useful, successful statewide advocacy organization, serving its member groups, the lower income populations of the state and the state as a whole.
Representatives of four Network member organizations led a panel discussion on winning strategies for community development organizations, and each held a subsequent workshop on a particular aspect: neighborhood partnerships, school-centered approaches, leadership development and green development strategies.
The Network’s Legislator of the Year Award went to nine recipients — the state Assembly Members who cosponsored A500, the comprehensive housing reform bill that Governor Corzine signed into law this summer: Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts; Assembly Majority leader Bonnie Watson Coleman; and Assembly Members Albert J. Coutinho, Mila M. Jasey, Nilsa Cruz-Perez, Elease Evans, Jerry Green, Thomas Giblin and Grace Spencer.
“I am well aware that that we have a fight ahead of us to protect the gains we made,” said Assemblywoman Jasey, who accepted the award on behalf of her colleagues. “And I am committed to meeting that challenge.”
Network Managing Director Paige Carlson Heim reminded all attendees to sign a statement calling upon Governor Corzine, state lawmakers and local officials to stand by and preserve the gains of A500.
The Network’s Excellence in Media Award went to Jim Hooker, longtime state correspondent and recently named news anchor for NJN News.
Carlson Heim promised attendees that the Network’s anniversary year would be an exciting one with numerous planned events, including local bus tours of member groups’ successful projects and an anniversary party in October.
The Network also held an executive board meeting, selecting Ray Ocasio of La Casa de Don Pedro in Newark to succeed Susan Holman James as board president, and honoring retiring board member Frank Piazza.
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