NEWARK, N.J.--Mayor Cory A. Booker, Jon Bon Jovi, Governor Jon Corzine, North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, and other local leaders held a press conference today in front of a vacant and undeveloped area at Oriental Street and Mt. Pleasant Avenue in the city’s North Ward, to announce the HELP Newark Initiative.
This public-private partnership with Bon Jovi’s Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation and developer HELP USA will result in Newark Genesis Apartments, 51 new units of affordable housing with support services for low-income and special-needs persons, which will include ground-breaking environmentally-friendly features such as a geothermal heating system and other components of New Jersey’s Green Future program. There will be a 2,500 square-foot community center as well.
Over the past three years, Bon Jovi and The Philadelphia Soul foundation have been instrumental in building 140 homes now in various stages of completion. The estimated cost of the project is $10.4 million, with opening set for Spring 2009.
The families residing at HELP Newark’s Genesis Apartments will receive a continuum of services to promote family stabilization, case management, and employment services provided both by HELP staff and local providers. In addition, HELP’s community center will offer programs designed to meet the needs of both the Newark Genesis Apartments tenants and the residents of the North Ward.
Twenty-five percent of the apartments will be reserved for tenants living with AIDS, making HELP’s Newark Genesis Apartments the first residential facility in New Jersey to provide permanent housing that is fully integrated with the services of a post-acute care AIDS facility. In this case, the future tenants will be referred by Broadway House for Continuing Care, a post-acute care AIDS facility just a few blocks away in the North Ward. Broadway House staff will provide medical case-management and counseling on-site at Genesis Homes in order to meet the clients’ ongoing medical needs.
City of Newark
www.ci.newark.nj.us
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