NJCA Year in Review 2002

Highlights and Victories

Over 2,000 people attended our "Women's Housing Initiative: A Home of Her Own" events which were held around NJ, including Hackensack, Asbury Park, Camden and twice in Newark. Workshops were presented in both English and Spanish. NJCA helped nearly 1,000 families achieve first time homeownership through our Loan Counseling program.
We crafted a historic financial workout program for more than 150 families who were victims of a massive predatory property-flipping scheme in Essex County, which we exposed in 2001. NJCA led a network of elected officials, federal and county agencies, and non-profit housing developers to put together this financial remediation solution, the first of its kind in the nation.
We began a Small Business Outreach program to raise awareness of the opportunities for small business owners to get capital through CRA. Hundreds of potential and current small business entrepreneurs learned about the availability of small-business funding and technical assistance.
Despite large price hikes in 2002, members saved as much as 17% on their annual heating costs through NJCA Oil Group, which pools buying power to negotiate for lower oil prices.
NJCA's input shaped the $15 million interim energy Universal Service Fund, adopted by the Board of Public Utilities after four years of planning. A permanent and fully funded USF will create affordable utility bills for low-income customers.
After a year of raising consumer concerns about the for-profit conversion of Salem County's Memorial Hospital, NJCA won major changes in the proposal. With the NJ Public Interest Law Center, we secured the appointment of an Independent Health Monitor to oversee the hospital for up to 5 years after its sale. NJCA and other consumer groups were given an oversight role over the escrow funds set up for the purchasing hospital to settle Memorial's debt to the community.

January – February

At the largest event in its history, NJCA's lead poisoning prevention Train-the-Trainer program trained 88 Newark school nurses. With the help of the Greater Newark Conservancy and the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, these nurses are now experts in preventing this devastating childhood disease.
Dozens of NJCA members picketed the NJ Chamber of Commerce's "Walk to Washington" and urged elected officials to "get on board" for affordable prescription drugs. We publicized personal stories about seniors forced to choose between medicine and their other needs.
NJCA won a critical ruling at the BPU, requiring Verizon to enact a viable Lifeline telephone program. This program will automatically enroll eligible phone customers in to a low-rate plan, increasing phone access in areas where residents often go without this basic service.

March – April

NJCA and parents of lead poisoned children testified at a State Senate Committee hearing on the Lead Hazard Control Assistance Act, S-1348. As a direct result of our testimony, the bill was expanded to make homeowners eligible for loans and grants as well as landlords. At an event in the West Ward of Newark, 2 candidates for Newark City Council signed a pledge to support of our lead inspection on request policy for Newark.
We urged 35 state elected officials to return more than $120,000 from Enron or to donate it to programs assisting the thousands of employees who lost their careers and retirement security when the company's collapsed NJCA held a lively picket at the Bergen County GOP Headquarters to protest the chairman's cynical refusal to return the money.

May – June

NJCA and the Housing and Community Development Network of NJ negotiated over $1 billion in a Community Reinvestment partnership with Washington Mutual. The Bank will reinvest in below-market rate mortgages, home improvement loans, community and economic development, small business loans, bridge financing for affordable housing developments and tax credit reinvestments in New Jersey. The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development designated NJCA as a Fair Housing Agency. We were chosen by the Perth Amboy Housing Authority to provide the first Section 8 Homeownership classes in the state.
With Families USA's, a national health care organization, NJCA released two reports showing the need for affordable health care. In A Bitter Pill, we showed that the most popular prescription drugs for seniors increased 3 times the rate of inflation in 2001. A 10-Foot Rope For A 40-Foot Hole: Tax Credits for the Uninsured concluded that President Bush's tax credits proposal for the uninsured would fail to expand coverage to low-income workers.
NJCA organized over 50 groups to pass a fair Corporate Business Tax. We held a successful Lobby Day, encouraging legislators to close corporate tax loopholes, and organized 75 people to rally in front of the NJ Business & Industry Assn., which led the opposition to the Fair Tax Plan. Our work saved NJ taxpayers over $700 million and prevented drastic budget cuts.

July – August

NJCA organized a State House rally for lower prescription drug costs, where over 150 people cheered on 50 senior citizens who "Got On The Bus" to Washington, D.C, demanding a real affordable prescription drug plan. NJCA fought legislation passed in the U.S. House of Representatives that provides subsidies to managed care companies to run a prescription drug company. NJ seniors pressed Congress to pass a law so that American seniors can get American drugs at reasonable prices in our own country and guarantee a prescription drug program in Medicare.
We picketed Schering-Plough for misleading the public about the high costs of prescription drugs, after releasing A Profiting From Pain report, which shows that the largest drug companies spent 2.5 times as much on marketing, advertising, and administration as they did on R&D in 2001.

September – October

NJCA was selected to provide mandatory financial literacy education to participants in NJ's Individual Development Account (IDA) savings match initiative. Financial education workshops, starting in 2003, include savings and investment, basic banking, credit and money management, fair housing and predatory lending.
In the 5^th, 7^th and 12^th Congressional Districts and the U.S. Senate race, NJCA engaged candidates, the media and voters in non-partisan, grassroots educational events and discussions about prescription drug relief, retirement security and corporate accountability. We surveyed these candidates and provided the public with a comparison of their positions and voting records on consumer issues. With local organizations, NJCA held issue based candidate forums and meetings in three districts. As a result of our efforts, 4 candidates signed our Pledge to Protect Social Security and Medicare, opposing privatization of Social Security and supporting a Medicare prescription drug plan. NJCA publicized the potential impact of Social Security and Medicare privatization on seniors
In two days, NJCA and 100 volunteers registered 4800 voters through our Transit Vote campaign, our statewide voter registration drive aimed at organizing the state's mass transit riders. Transit Vote brings together environmentalists, consumer advocates, disability and civil rights activists and concerned citizens to encourage mass transit riders to vote. We reached voters at train, subway and bus stations in concentrated urban areas around the state.
Scores of supporters attended NJCA's Bumbling Brothers Three Ring Circus, an anti-privatization street theater demonstration, to counter a fundraiser for U.S. Senate hopeful Doug Forrester hosted by President Bush.

November – December

Playing an issue-based role in educating and mobilizing thousands of citizens to vote, we provided our members and voters registered through Transit Vote with non-partisan mail about important social issues and another urging them to vote on Election Day. They also got two phone calls urging them to vote on Election Day. On the night before Election Day, staff and volunteers handed out non-partisan issue voter guides to transit riders at the same 14 locations where we registered voters.
On Election Day, NJCA conducted poll-monitoring activities in major urban areas. Monitors answered voters' questions, informed them about their rights at the polling location and provided an instant link to pro-bono attorneys willing to provide on the spot assistance to disenfranchised voters. In addition to calling media attention to the on-going voting rights problems in New Jersey's urban areas, we provided much-needed assistance to individual voters when they needed it at the polls.
Poll monitors also conducted a physical survey of each polling location at which we were present, as part of our work with the NJ Developmental Disabilities Council (NJDDC) Voting Access project. The project seeks to ensure that voting places are accessible for people with disabilities and is compiling data about the poor state of many of New Jersey's polling locations. As a recipient of the NJDDC's Election Challenge Grant, NJCA surveyed the accessibility of 25 polling places. Working with county officials and local disability advocates, we were able to change Election Day operations in Union County so that voters with disabilities could use the Para-transit system to go to the polls.
NJCA celebrated the opening of our second Financial Education Center in Camden, to accommodate a growing technology component and to meet the increasing demand for our services. Like our Newark Center, this facility also has a Technology Room, in which up to 10 consumers at a time can take advantage of small group trainings to learn more about computers and master the Internet for on-line banking and other services.
'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' joined NJCA at a holiday-themed, informational picket at Kearny's Schuyler Bank. Demonstrators sang holiday carols and called on the bank to meet with NJCA and community representatives.
NJCA helped organize 26 groups to be a part of the Fair Lending Coalition, which includes AARP, NAACP, ACORN, the NJ Institute for Social Justice and Legal Services of NJ. Together, this Coalition passed The Home Loan Protection Act, one of the strongest anti-predatory lending laws in the country. The Coalition brought victims of predatory lending to testify at numerous legislative hearings, and rebutted industry claims that banning predatory lending would reduce low-income residents' access to capital.

Community Education

NJCA conducted over 700 Energy Choice presentations, primarily to organizations representing low-and moderate-income customers, seniors and people of color. We reached over 26,000 energy consumers about their rights and opportunities under deregulation.
Our Telecommunications Education effort reached more than 180 organizations and 5000 participants. These presentations teach customers to understand their phone bills, make smart telecommunications decisions and prevent fraud.
NJCA's Financial Education and Technology Centers in Camden and Newark conducted 275 trainings for over 7,250 people, including over 130 consumer predatory lending workshops which educated more than 3,500 individuals.