Newark Stays

Newark Stays is a timely citywide collaborative effort among Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), Newark Community Street Team (NCST), Newark Office of Tenant Legal Services, Clinton Hill Community Action (CHCA), and Greater Newark HUD Tenants Coalition. This initiative, coordinated on the funder side by Victoria Foundation and further supported in its first year by peer Newark-area funders including Schumann Fund for New Jersey, Maher Charitable Foundation, the Colton Family Foundation, and Prudential Foundation, is spearheaded by black and brown-led community organizations, (ICC, NCST, CHCA). Newark Stays seeks to prevent evictions of low-income Newark residents while promoting housing security policies to protect residents from eviction and fostering family housing stability over the long-term. This work combines door-to-door outreach efforts to enroll Newark tenants into state programs including rental assistance and – in applicable cases – direct eviction dismissal, as well as referral to mental health and other direct services. The initiative engaged and trained 15 Newark residents as outreach workers who themselves had experienced housing insecurity. Over the course of trainings supported by Schumann Fund in 2021, these outreach workers began their journey toward becoming housing justice organizers. Newark Stays is pivoting to a broader housing security organizing campaign, building on the leadership development begun in its first year and focusing on housing habitability and landlord accountability as policy goals. Newark Stays was launched through a $25,000 planning grant provided by Victoria Foundation in early 2021, as well as a lead grant of $1 million from Victoria toward year 1 implementation. It has grown into a significant funder-supported collaborative with approximately $2.1 million in funding to date. Schumann Fund has supported a community organizing training for Newark Stays outreach workers, as well as multi-year support for a full-time Field Director.