NJCA Year in Review 2003

Highlights and Victories

NJCA passed two new laws that will protect children and families in New Jersey: The NJ Home-ownership Security Act and The Lead Hazard Control Assistance Act (see May, December)
We opened the door to first-time homeownership to 775 NJ families, through our Loan Counseling Program, which provides assistance with budgeting, credit, and Community Reinvestment Act mortgages. 4,000 families are actively involved in this and our home improvement counseling program. NJCA expanded our Homeownership Institute, a series of classes for first-time homebuyers, to include Section 8 Homeownership.
NJCA held two Women's Housing Initiative seminars, in Newark and Asbury Park. Hundreds of people, mostly female heads of households, learned about purchasing a home of their own. Our mentoring program "Been There, Done That" paired 25 women who have purchased homes through us with 50 women who are entering counseling and face long-term credit repair.
We reached over 300 current and future small business owners through our Small Business Outreach program. We held events in Long Branch, Newark and Yonkers, NY to raise awareness of the opportunities for to access capital through CRA.
Thousands of consumers saved as much as 17% on their annual heating costs through our Oil Group, which pools buying power to negotiate for lower oil prices.
NJCA trained a record 190 community leaders and agency staff around the state on lead poisoning prevention, in six train the trainer seminars. Also, as part of our efforts in increase abatements, we launched the "Disclosure Project" leveraging federal laws to empower tenants and force compliance by landlords. Consumers for Civil Justice honored NJCA for our lead poisoning prevention work in 2003.

January – February

NJCA fought for victims' rights, opposing caps on awards for medical malpractice victims and calling for improved patient safety regulations. We countered the theory that limits on victim compensation will reduce insurance rates by providing information from other states, and urged the state to take strong legislative action to regulate insurers and bad doctors. We also stopped a proposal to use future public assets, generated by a for-profit conversion by Horizon, to subsidize doctors with high insurance costs, which would violate existing state law.
We demonstrated our opposition to President Bush's proposed tax cuts and urged state leaders to raise income taxes on the wealthiest New Jerseyans, who benefited the most from Bush's previous tax breaks, to offset devastating budget cuts that threaten critical social services. Dressed in faux furs and jewels, NJCA sent this message to NJ's state and federal leaders by protesting the annual Chamber of Commerce "Greed Train."
Continuing our focus on prevention, NJCA launched a training program to teach Newark area tenants and landlords to test their homes for lead poisoning, to avoid exposing children to this environmental hazard. Scores of residents were trained through this effort in 2003.
NJCA supported efforts to make cable companies more responsive to consumers. The Governor and legislative leaders proposed raising standards for customer service and penalties for failure to meet these new rules.

March – April

With bi-partisan support, NJCA introduced the "Fair Prescription Drug" Act, to allow the state to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for its programs' participants and the uninsured.
NJCA's Lead Committee held an accountability session with Senator Rice on the Lead Hazard Control Assistance Act. NJCA Board members David Weiner, Lionel Leach, and Waheedah Muhammad expressed concerns about funding mechanisms for the bill. Representatives from NJCA affiliates La Casa de Don Pedro, NJEF, and Paterson Task Force participated as well as other organizations, parents and an elected official. We showed Senator Rice strong community support for the bill and he assured us that there would be legislation by the end of the session. NJCA affiliates NJTO, NJEF, and Paterson Task Force assisted us in negotiations and fighting off attacks on the bill late in the legislative session.
NJCA helped launch the Fairness Alliance, a 100 member coalition dedicated to increasing state revenue by raising taxes on New Jersey's richest 1%. By recapturing the windfall from the Bush tax cuts, the Fairness Alliance proposed saving crucial public services like FamilyCare, PAAD and reducing college tuition.
As ethics scandals in Trenton widened, NJCA introduced legislation to establish a Clean Elections Study Commission, to evaluate publicly funded elections for state legislative and gubernatorial races.
NJCA leaders represented consumers in a series of debates about the medical malpractice crisis, taking on doctors who falsely claimed jury awards are solely responsible for soaring insurance costs.
We educated more than 70 victims of predatory lending in Essex County, about home improvement opportunities for do-it-yourselfers and how to avoid being re-victimized.

May – June

After four years of organizing and mobilizing, we won enactment of the NJ Homeownership Security Act, one of the strongest anti-predatory lending laws in the nation. NJCA was a leading member of the Coalition for Fair Lending, which secured the bill's passage.
NJCA helped the Fairness Alliance ostrich deliver more than 5,000 postcards to legislative leaders, telling them to get their head out of the sand and support the Alliance plan for fair taxes.
We opposed potential budget cuts to FamilyCare and prescription drug programs. In one demonstration, we delivered an oversized scissors signed by hundreds of low-income NJ residents to the Governor. In another, we drew attention to the impact high drug costs would have on urban seniors and people with disabilities.
Busloads of NJCA members marched to "Leave No Millionaire Behind" March in Washington DC, in protest of the President's proposed tax cuts and privatization of Medicare. NJCA began a massive mobilization to stop the Medicare plan and to make sure NJ's U.S. Senators opposed the proposal.
Tawayna Hudson was the first survivor of predatory lending to complete NJCA's landmark Predator Lending Workout Solution. As a result of NJCA's work with HUD, Fannie Mae, New Community Corporation and participating municipalities and banks, Ms. Hudson and 30 other families in and around Newark will avoid foreclosure and get a new mortgage which reflects the actual value of their homes.
The Assembly overwhelmingly passed the Clean Elections Study Commission bill by a majority of 73-7 and added a seat on the commission for NJCA.

July – August

More than 50 NJCA members and one large skunk protested the "Stinky Medicare Plan" and other Bush Administration's policies outside a fund-raiser held by Vice President Dick Cheney in Rumson, NJ.
U.S. Senator Jon Corzine joined NJCA's fight to protect Medicare, speaking to more than 400 seniors and people with disabilities at a forum in Garwood. NJCA organized the forum in collaboration with the Senior Legislative Issues Coalition of Union County and the AARP.
Our Board of Directors launched a Strategic Planning process, to build our political power for the next decade.

September – October

We released an original report, "The Drug Company Habit: A Study of Pharmaceutical Industry Campaign Contributions and Policy Influence", showing the habitual relationship between state politics and the drug industry in New Jersey. It details $2 million campaign contributions to state races and parties during the last two legislative cycles (1999-2003). The report received wide media coverage and supported our work to pass the Study Commission bill.
NJCA called on all 2003 State Assembly and Senate Candidates to "Just Say No to Drug Money" and urged candidates to sign a pledge and make a commitment to represent the interests of constituents not large corporate contributors, fight to lower prescription drugs.
With Legal Services of NJ, we facilitated a train-the-trainer session to train 20 loan counselors from throughout the state on predatory lending and the NJ Homeownership Security Act of 2003.
For the third year, we organized and coordinated a successful Transit Vote voter registration effort, registering over 2,000 people to vote. 100 volunteers worked 15 different transit locations on two days.
In the 2003 legislative elections, we surveyed and researched candidates' positions on NJCA's issues and published issue-based voter guides, which were distributed to newly registered voters through Transit Vote.
Using these surveys, NJCA's Political Action Committee endorsed 12 candidates in the state's 6 most competitive races, and worked to get those candidates elected. Using our 20 years of issue-based election experience, we communicated with our members about candidates' positions and drew distinctions between the candidates on key concerns, including medical malpractice, prescription drug coverage, energy deregulation and ethics reform. We conducted voter IDs, persuasion phone calls and Get Out the Vote efforts and 75% of the candidates who received NJCA's PAC endorsement won their race.
Together with allies from the Monday Morning Network, United Senior Alliance, HPAE Council of Retirees, State Federation of Teachers, and Alliance for Retired Americans, NJCA held a State House Press Row sit-in to protest the lack of coverage about the Medicare plan.
NJCA released USAction Education Fund's report Paying More for Less, which showed that Medicare beneficiaries will pay more for medications with Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug Plan than they currently pay. Under the plan, Medicare recipients pay more out of pocket and thousands in New Jersey stand to lose their existing coverage through state programs and retiree coverage through former employers.
Sovereign Bank announced its $300 million renewed community reinvestment agreement with NJCA and the Housing and Community Development Network of NJ. Sovereign committed over $175 million in mortgages over the next three years.
As part of the Election Challenge Grant, NJCA and Monday Morning Network activists surveyed 70 polling places for accessibility in Essex, Bergen, Hudson and Middlesex Counties.

November – December

NJCA passed the Lead Hazard Control Assistance Act, after a seven year fight with landlords and the paint industry. This bill will provide homeowners with grants and low-cost loans to help with the high cost of lead abatement. It will also create a registry of lead-safe housing.
Dozens of senior NJCA activists shredded their AARP membership cards in opposition to AARP's decision to support the Medicare prescription drug bill in Congress. After shredding their cards, the group marched to Senators Corzine and Lautenberg's offices to tell their Senators that AARP does not represent their members' voices and delivered 15,000 letters to urging them to oppose the plan. Both Senators, who initially supported it, voted against the Medicare plan at the end.
50 community activists and a Thanksgiving turkey picketed Hudson United Bank's Newark Branch, urging the bank to "talk turkey" about its poor lending record to low-income residents and people of color. The bank is refusing to renegotiate a community reinvestment agreement with NJCA.
PNC Bank announced its $883 million renewed community reinvestment agreement with NJCA and the Housing and Community Development Network of NJ. As a result of the agreement, PNC will start doing below market-rate mortgages in NJ once again.
NJCA co-hosted a press conference with Gov. James E. McGreevey to kick-off the state's permanent Universal Service Fund program, which helps low-income energy consumers with high utility bills pay their fair share. NJCA has been working since 1998 to make the state implement a comprehensive program to provide bill credits for utility customers who are unable to pay their bills.

Community Education

We expanded our telecommunications outreach to include information about Lifeline, an assistance program for low-income phone customers. We educated more than 3200 participants at 100 organizations through the Telecommunications Education effort, bringing our total to 10,000 people. These presentations teach customers to understand their phone bills, make smart telecommunications decisions and prevent fraud.
NJCA conducted over 430 Energy Choice presentations, primarily to organizations representing low-and moderate-income customers, seniors and people of color. We reached over 100,000 energy consumers about their rights and opportunities under deregulation since 1999.
Our Financial Education and Technology Centers in Camden and Newark conducted over 300 trainings for over 7,800 people, including over 120 consumer predatory lending workshops which educated over 4,000 individuals.