Neighborhood Stabilization Workforce Development Project

The City of Newark’s Department of Economic and Housing Development in conjunction with Newark’s Office of Reentry commissioned the Neighborhood Stabilization Workforce Development Project with Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) as a spring 2010 Capstone workshop. The mission of the Department is to stimulate economic growth and opportunity for Newark residents and enhance the vibrancy of the city. It seeks to achieve these goals by creating jobs within the city, training Newark’s workforce, and developing underutilized land.

Over the past two years, two phases of Neighborhood Stabilization Program federal funding (NSP1 and NSP2) has been committed to community development corporations (CDCs) in and around Newark to acquire, renovate, and sell up to five hundred foreclosed/abandoned properties in Newark’s most vulnerable neighborhoods. The Department of Economic and Housing Development is concerned that an unfriendly homebuyer’s market will leave many of these properties unsold and in the hands of CDCs with limited capacity to rent or manage them. In parallel, Newark is facing an unemployment rate of 10% as of January 20101. Generating employment opportunities, especially for those facing the most challenging job-seeking conditions such as ex-offenders, is a critical component of achieving neighborhood stabilization.

The City of Newark’s Department of Economic and Housing Development tasked the SIPA team with researching and proposing an economically viable way to assist CDCs achieve NSP goals while exploring the possibility of putting ex offenders to work towards that aim.