Beginning Sept. 1, 2022 and running through Nov. 1, 2022, Jersey City residents can once again apply to the city’s Golden Neighborhood Housing Program, an opportunity for low- and moderate-income residents of the city to receive as much as $150,000 toward the cost of a buying a Jersey City apartment or house.
“This is a great opportunity to get the community engaged and educated about homeownership in our city,” said Mayor Fulop. “Our goal is to create and preserve affordable housing while also helping residents achieve homeownership where they may not otherwise be able to afford their own family home.”
The program, run by the Division of Community Development (within the city’s Department of Housing, Economic Development & Commerce), is open to an individual or family that meets certain income eligibility requirements, has never owned a home or has not owned a home in the last three years, and has a minimum credit score of 660.
Because the awards are grants, not loans, they require neither interest payments nor repayment (assuming certain conditions are met). This enables recipients to leverage their awards over time.
“We want to keep communities intact while creating opportunities for generational wealth building,” said the division’s director, Deja Anderson, notes.
Those Jersey City residents who qualify after the preliminary September 1–November 1 screening will be entered into a lottery from which a select number of grantees will be drawn. Lottery winners will need to complete pre-and post-mortgage counseling by a HUD-certified provider. (They will also need to secure mortgages.).
Lottery “losers” and those who did not qualify for the lottery for financial reasons will be offered limited services as well.
The division will host a mortgage fair on October 5 with local and national banks to provide additional support/information on their own in-house first-time homebuyer programs, which can be used in combination with our grant.
Details on the program — along with the preliminary application — can be found on the city’s Community Development website.
Readers are also invited to contact the division at 201-547-6910 or GNHP@jcnj.org.
Photo by Thirdman