The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has awarded $985,000 to New Jersey Community Capital (NJCC) to facilitate the development, preservation, and enhancement of affordable housing, vocational programming, and community facilities in East Trenton.
NJCC will utilize the funding to support ongoing programs managed by the East Trenton Collaborative, a community organizing and development initiative in the East Trenton neighborhood of Trenton’s North Ward. The award marks the sixth time NJCC has successfully secured funds through the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program for its efforts to reinvigorate the community’s most vulnerable populations.
“Through our incredible collaboration with community members and partners we are making great strides in East Trenton,” said Bernel Hall, president and CEO of New Jersey Community Capital. “We couldn’t do this without the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program, and I thank the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and the contributing corporations for this critical funding. Thanks to their support, we will be able to move closer to realizing a shared vision for a thriving East Trenton community.”
According to NJCC, the institution will first use these funds to acquire and redevelop several abandoned homes that will eventually debut as affordable homeownership properties. A portion of the funds will also help finance a two-phase restoration plan for the historic East Trenton Library building. Led by Trenton-based design studio Clarke Caton Hintz, the East Trenton Library Community Center will host community programs focused on job readiness, adult education, employment training, and entrepreneurial training among others, run by the City of Trenton, the East Trenton Collaborative, and other partners.
The institution will also continue to offer summer and school season employment programming for neighborhood youth.
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I grew up outside of Trenton and the view shown is West State Street at
Warren, and not east despite what some online maps might indicate. State and Broad street intersection is the east-west divide. Poor Trenton was the “big city” in my childhood and where one went shopping prior to the coming of suburban malls. Were it not the state capital with numerous government offices brought in, Trenton would likely be an urban wasteland today.