The Star-Ledger's editorial today hits the governor pretty hard on his plan to siphon off federal housing aid to balance the state's budget.
The editorial tells the story of Lamasha Crooks and Cherrelle Alexander, who found he selves homeless, victims of an economy that has shed jobs and a government that has shredded its safety net. Multiply their stories "thousands of times over and you’ll have an idea of the housing crisis in New Jersey, one of the most expensive places to live in the United States."
Which makes Gov. Chris Christie’s money grab of housing dollars all the more unconscionable: $161 million specifically collected from developers for low-cost housing and deposited in housing trust funds, and another $75 million intended for foreclosure relief from a federal and state settlement with mortgage providers.
All will disappear into state coffers, to plug holes in a smoke-and-mirrors budget that magically produces tax cuts. For a manufactured “comeback.”
Just don’t think, for a second, it comes without a cost. In other comebacks, in other dreams.
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