Community Access Unlimited's executive director, Sid Blanchard, right, with the organization's new headquarters building being renovated in Elizabeth, NJ

ELIZABETH, NJ––Community Access Unlimited has been taking a novel approach to affordable housing advocacy work for several decades. CAU, which provides services for people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations, is one of the first nonprofits in the nation to pursue directly the federal low-income housing tax credit to acquire property.

“We've pioneered new ways of doing affordable housing that are both successful and integrated by people with disabilities, people without disabilities, people from different income levels, from market rental income, to people of very low income, and also from mixed use of residential and commercial space,” Sid Blanchard, CAU's executive director, tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. “It's a unique model for not-for-profits, because, particularly in New Jersey, nonprofits have been addicted to the heroin, if you will, of governmental money, with a lot of governmental regulations that come with it, that have the unintentional result, most often, of causing the nonprofit to go out of business, and the housing to have huge deferred maintenance and poor management.”

CAU, which has several hundred housing units in 75 locations in Union County, including a new property opened last year in Fanwood, has evolved from taking advantage of government funding streams in its early years to an independent developer of affordable housing, Blanchard says. He says the organization serves about 5,000 people a year, whom it refers to as “members.”

CAU, unlike other community organizations advocating for affordable housing, actually owns its own properties, because the ownership provides better control of the quality of the housing experience for residents, he says.

“To build equity and have equity for the organization to use as leverage to get funding from mortgages and lines of credit from banks, you have to have assets,” Blanchard says. “A typical developer, non-profit or for-profit, they just want to make a deal, they get their money at the closing, and they walk away with it. What happens to that housing unit afterwards is none of their concern. Often it's left with inadequate ability and property management to be successful for the long-term.”

Blanchard, a life-long community organizer who recalls being tear-gassed during street protests in the 1960s, says because of his organization's independent funding model, he's been able to skirt the chaos roiling the New Jersey affordable housing space because of the failure of the state's Council on Affordable Housing. Last year, the New Jersey Supreme Court declared COAH “moribund” in a scathing opinion that ordered municipal affordable housing determinations back into the court system because of COAH's failure to perform its responsibilities.

“We have a model that works for us, and we're often times doing it in spite of the regulations,” he says. “I would like to be able to have the towns that we work in be able to count our affordable housing toward their obligations for the town. The point is, each town should have affordable housing, so if something doesn't come through using government funds, but it's affordable housing in that town, isn't it silly not to be able to count it? It puts the very point of affordable housing on its head.”

Blanchard is sanguine about the possibility of gaining consensus for political action among participants in the affordable housing industry space.

“I could say all the groups of different interests should get together, and have a conference or whatever, and talk about the issues, and kind of come up with a solution, but that's not going to happen,” he says. “It hasn't happened in decades, and right now it doesn't look like it could happen now either. There are too many interests and too many different careers that have been launched off of all these regulations. So I'm not sure I have a full solution, except it would be nice to use common sense.”

CAU completed a number of large projects in 2015, including redevelopment of a 136,000 square-foot commercial building for the organization's headquarters in Elizabeth. CAU prefers to develop mixed-use retail and housing environments. It currently has buildings in 12 towns throughout Union County, including 100 condominium/townhomes, 23 single family homes, 42 two-family homes, nine three-family homes, and 47 apartment units. It also is developing 10 apartment units in one location.

“We have a number of people where two, three, four people want to live together, and a couple of them have need for accessible housing, so we're looking at the four-person group-home model as well,” he says. “I'm on the hunt for future projects. It takes about a year to be able to get something on line.”

Correction, 2/17/2016: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described CAU as having buildings throughout Middlesex County. CAU operates in Union County, NJ.

Blanchard is sanguine about the possibility of gaining consensus for political action among participants in the affordable housing industry space.

Correction, 2/17/2016: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described CAU as having buildings throughout Middlesex County. CAU operates in Union County, NJ.

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Union County Nonprofit Takes Independent Approach to Affordable Housing

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