Summit’s Council President: Affordable Housing Increases Crime

[Summit, NJ] — Summit has long been known for being a community that strongly supports nonpartisan social programs aimed at improving the lives of New Jersey’s most vulnerable. The birthplace of the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, BRIDGES, Family Promise, the PEP Program and others, Summit has consistently helped build pathways to success.

On Monday, March 11th, Summit’s Common Council President Lisa Allen, in what many viewed as inflammatory testimony, pierced that stellar reputation during the New Jersey Senate’s Appropriations and Budget hearing in Trenton.

“There will be no escaping the noise, the pollution, the cars, the expanding schools and the expanding crime that has seeped into our communities,” Allen claimed. Her implication that increased affordable housing will lead to increased crime revealed ignorant biases held by the city’s current leadership.

The overtones of Allen’s remarks are not supported by data. In fact, responsibly-planned affordable housing development in the suburbs has proven to be a winner: it not only reduces inter-generational poverty—but it produces the most cost-effective outcomes for increasing economic mobility among residents.

Those in the room reported audible gasps at Allen’s testimony, and during the roll call vote, Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz (D-LD25) gave a passionate rebuttal to Allen’s claim, “I heard crime and noise associated with affordable housing […] that is hugely disrespectful to an…individual who cannot afford a home—that they are synonymous with those two kinds of descriptions.”

Senator Nilsa Cruz-Perez (D-LD5) echoed her colleague,  “I was appalled to listen to some people that were testifying to use ‘crime and noise’ for people who need a home to live…we have a responsibility to make sure that our kids have a home to live in in the future.”