Housing & Community Development Network Thanks Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) for Many Years of Service

TRENTON – As Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman announces that she plans to retire at the end of her current term, the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey (the Network) thanks her for her many years of service, reflecting on a number of occasions when Rep. Watson Coleman advocated for policies that work to HouseNJ throughout a long career championing programs that promote racial equity and economic justice.

Rep. Watson Coleman supported COVID-19 pandemic renter protections and foreclosure relief, helping to keep people in their homes amid a serious public health crisis. She introduced the Stay Cool Act to help our communities be prepared for heat waves, the Affordable Housing and Area Median Income Fairness Act of 2022 to expand access to affordable homes, and the Keep Your Home and Prevent Homelessness Act to help those experiencing homelessness. During her time in the New Jersey Assembly, where she became the first Black woman to hold the position of Assembly Majority Leader, Rep. Watson Coleman supported ending restrictive covenant agreements, helped create New Jersey’s foreclosure response during the Great Recession, and worked to establish very low-income housing set-asides for transit-oriented developments and other state-supported developments.

Early in her public service career, Rep. Watson Coleman served as Assistant Commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. She was an early supporter of funding for programs and services for people experiencing incarceration, establishing the Prisoner’s Reentry Bill of Rights and supporting the Opportunity to Compete Act of 2014, which establishes certain employment rights for people with criminal histories.

For these reasons and many more, the Network named Rep. Watson Coleman one of its 35th Anniversary Honorees last year.

“As the first Black woman to represent New Jersey in Congress, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s career is truly groundbreaking,” said Staci Berger, president and chief executive officer of the Network. “She has been a true agent of positive change for New Jersey and the nation as a whole, and her retirement, although a loss for her constituents, is more than well-deserved. All of us are extremely grateful to Rep. Watson Coleman for being such a longtime friend of the Network and ally in the struggle for housing justice.”