A homeless response system on the brink, and a chance to stabilize it

On June 30, the State of New Jersey will vote on the budget for 2027. Among the many decisions before lawmakers is whether to make a long-overdue initial investment in the state’s collapsing homeless response system.

We are facing an unprecedented homelessness crisis. Homelessness has surged by 70% over the past four years. Last year alone, more than 172,000 New Jersey residents were homeless or sought out homelessness prevention services. That’s more of our neighbors who were homeless or at risk of homelessness than the population of Paterson, our third-largest city.

Let’s be clear: While this $40 million included in Senate Resolution No. 432/Assembly Resolution No. 7 will not meet the full need, it is a critical first step toward stabilizing our homeless response system and building the sustained funding over time that is necessary to address the crisis.

At her budget hearing, Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Jacquelyn Suárez cited estimates that more than $300 million could be needed simply to restore the homeless response system to operating at 2024 levels. Addressing a homelessness crisis of this magnitude will require sustained investment and prioritization over time, beginning with the decision to act now, before an already strained system is pushed beyond its limits.

At a time of record housing costs and shrinking federal support, more New Jersey families are one crisis away from homelessness. Yet the systems designed to prevent and respond to homelessness remain chronically underfunded and overwhelmed by demand.

The cost of inaction is already staggering, and this crisis is only getting worse. If funding for the homeless response system remains flat, emergency shelter demand and street homelessness could nearly double by the end of this year, according to the Department of Community Affairs’ conservative projections.

“Last year alone, more than 172,000 New Jersey residents were homeless or sought out homelessness prevention services.”

At the same time, proposed federal homelessness funding cuts could result in New Jersey losing more than $22 million of its current funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, meaning thousands of New Jersey residents, many of whom are the hardest to rehouse, could return to homelessness.

These are not abstractions. These are real human lives paying for the devastating consequences of our inaction.

They are children sleeping in cars because their family has nowhere else to go.

They are older adults in their 90s entering homelessness for the first time after a lifetime of work because of skyrocketing housing costs.

They are survivors of domestic violence being turned away from shelters because there is no room in the inn.

They are individuals discharged from hospitals w nowhere safe to recover.

And they are our neighbors sleeping outside, increasingly visible in every corner of New Jersey, because the systems designed to help them are overwhelmed.

New Jersey is not alone in having to tackle this problem, but we have been late out of the gate in facing it squarely. According to a recently released Rutgers University comparative study, New Jersey trails all but one peer state’s investment in homeless services. Some states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, spend nearly double the amount New Jersey does per unhoused individual on homelessness-specific programs. Clearly, we can and must do better.

*Illinois state spending total does not include an additional $75,992,210 in city funds that Chicago spends, which is equal to an additional $10,198 per Chicago unhoused person.

New Jersey cannot hope to attract new businesses, residents, or opportunities if we do not begin to effectively address this crisis. Nor can we, in this wealthy state, look away from the suffering of those without homes, hoping for a solution not of our own making.

The $40 million represents the bare minimum necessary step to stabilizing a system that is on the brink. It is needed to help more households avoid homelessness, help households exit homelessness quickly, strengthen our state’s shelter capacity, and expand housing opportunities.

But it must be viewed for what it is: a beginning, not an endpoint.

On June 30, lawmakers will have a choice:

Support Senate Resolution No. 432/Assembly Resolution No. 7 and strengthen life-saving funding for our homeless response system, or face a deeper and more costly crisis later.

Please tell them that New Jersey cannot afford to wait.