Angelique Flores, 55, has been a Jersey City resident all her life. Three years ago, her husband died. Then her kids moved out of the family's apartment, and all of sudden, Flores found herself living alone and looking to downsize.
She began applying for affordable housing in Jersey City and was thrilled to find several new developments with amenities she’d never had before, like laundry and a gym. But to her shock, each application came with an additional fee.
”I was paying $30, $50, $100 … at one point, in like three months time, I must have spent at least $500 just trying to get an apartment,” Flores said.
With sometimes hundreds of people applying for just a few units in a building, Flores has been unable to secure a new apartment. Discouraged by the process, particularly the application fees, she’s instead decided to stay in her old apartment for the time being.
“ I feel like if you get the apartment, OK, keep the money, but if you don't get the apartment, it should be refunded,” she said.
Now, Flores and other Jersey City residents are raising the issue of application fees with their municipal leaders and starting to get some traction, as candidates in the city’s hotly contested mayoral race express an interest in changing the process.
The push comes amid a statewide reckoning with New Jersey's widespread affordable housing crisis. State officials estimate that New Jersey is short more than 200,000 low-priced units for its most rent-burdened individuals.
Jersey City — where more than 70% of residents rent their homes — stands as a stark example of the Garden State's affordability problems. According to real estate platform Zumper, Jersey City’s $2,820 median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is the fourth-highest of any city in the country, compared to $4,450 in New York City.
Wendy Paul, executive director for the Jersey City Apartment Owners Association, told Gothamist the fees go toward expenses related to the application that property owners have to account for, including for background and credit checks. She said her organization would be interested in discussing ways the municipality or state could allow for fee waivers in some circumstances. But she said it would be important for property owners to recoup some if not all of those fees.
“But to get rid of the fees altogether would require a much longer conversation,” Paul said.
Jersey City resident Minnie Torres said she also had a bad experience with affordable housing application fees, noting she’s paid as much as $50 for a single application. When she’s asked what the money was for, the real estate or management company collecting it told her “administrative fees.”
“If they give out 100 applications, let's multiply it by $50. That's a lot of money,” she said.
At a recent town hall meeting, Torres raised the subject with Jersey City mayoral candidate Bill O’Dea. He said he was taken aback when he learned lower-income households were being charged just to apply for affordable housing.
“It makes absolutely no sense,” O’Dea, currently a Hudson County commissioner, told Gothamist.
After that meeting, O’Dea said he called some developers to verify what Torres and others at the meeting said. He said he learned some developers were charging up to $150 per application, and there's no refund if an applicant is rejected.
“ It varies. Not everyone charges, but many of them charge,” he said.
O’Dea said he wants to ban these sorts of application fees if he's elected mayor. He told Gothamist he would issue an executive order forbidding any developer getting city funding or tax incentives from charging an application fee.
He also said he'd commit to working on an ordinance that did the same and would be a more durable action than an executive order. O'Dea added that he’d like to establish a central database where people could fill out a standard application and submit it for multiple affordable housing buildings.
Gothamist reached out to other candidates in the mayor's race about the proposal to ban application fees. Councilmember James Solomon said he agreed it was a good idea. Candidates Mussab Ali, Joyce Watterman and Jim McGreevey didn’t respond.
Angelique Flores said if Jersey City gets rid of the application fees, she’d resume her hunt for a more affordable apartment.
“I do want to move, I deserve better,” she said.
