Curries Woods HOPE VI

The JCHA HOPE VI Team completely transformed our existing Curries Woods public housing "project" -- an isolated, obsolete, poverty-concentrated, 712-unit public housing high-rise monolith -- which does not and cannot work, into the new, 298-unit Curries Woods "Community of Opportunity" work.

Curries Woods

The Revitalization Plan Components

	Overall density reduction from 712 to 298 units.
	Phased demolition of six of seven high-rise buildings.
	Phased new construction of 207 lower density, quality townhouses, including three homeownership units (comletes).
	Substantial redesign and rehabilitation of one high-rise (91 units) for senior citizens and disabled( new accommodations for persons with disabilities).
	Phased relocation of site residents, minimizing off-site displacement for responsible residents; and where necessary, Section 8 assistance for residents temporarily moving or choosing to relocate off-site (well underway).
	A completely reconstituted site plan, with the Community Revitalization Center providing early childhood education and welfare-to-work initiatives.

Off-Site Developments

Lafayette Village - 124 townhouses were completed in 2002 and are managed by a private sector developer as a mixed-income, mixed-finance rental development, including federal and State tax credit financing, and including public housing, tax credit and market rate incomes and rent structures.

Resident Welfare-to-Work/Self-Sufficiency Initiatives

Our HOPE VI Team intends to transform the demographic profile and perception of public housing residents and communities. The JCHA's objective is to increase the number of working families at Curries Woods primarily through the Self-Sufficiency initiatives centered at the on-site Community Revitalization Center. (The number of employed families at Curries Woods increased from 35% to 67%). At the off-site community, the JCHA used new tenant selection priorities to achieve more economically diverse communities from the start.

The HOPE VI Revitalization Plan included the construction of the Community Revitalization Center, where both on-site activities and off-site job linkages are in one place - a "one-stop" center for educational, job readiness, employment and family support activities and programs. Initiatives include: computer training facilities for adults and children, early childhood care and education, After School Programs, Job Readiness Workshops, Section 3 and private sector trade apprenticeship training and employment opportunities. An early education wing of the building will house two Pre-Kindergarten classes and one Kindergarten class, funded and operated entirely by Jersey City Public Schools.

Management Policies and Programs

Our long-term management game plan for the new Curries Woods and off-site development is well grounded in the JCHA's twenty years of organizational integrity and professional capacity, results orientation, extensive resident partnership and decentralized, site-based operating principles and practices. The JCHA implemented, and designed programs and policies to achieve: greater economic diversity, with a majority of employed families, improved resident safety and security, significant homeownership opportunities and increased resident responsibility.

Examples include: site-based waiting lists, flat rents, new employment income exemptions from rent determination, local admission preferences for working families irregardless of income, community service positions, effective enforcement of new "One Strike and You're Out" lease provisions, and site-based policing.

Achievement of our Revitalization Plan objectives have done nothing less than dramatically change the physical form and demographic face of public housing in Jersey City and establish duplicative models nationwide.