HOBOKEN – In a town where many working-class residents and artists can no longer afford to live, and with a waiting list 858-people long to get into public housing, even the new director of the publicly funded Hoboken Housing Authority projects said last week that he hasn’t found a reasonably priced residence to move into in town, despite looking.
“I’m currently out in West Orange,” said new HHA Executive Director Marc Recko last week. “I do hope to get back here in the long term.”
He noted, “As we go down the road, we have to take a real good look at how the city can find affordable housing for working-class families,” he said in an interview last week.
Recko was hired by the HHA’s unpaid seven-member Board of Commissioners last October. He will soon mark six months on the job.
The HHA oversees the 1,353 units of low-income and senior citizen public housing in 28 properties at six locations on the west side of Hoboken. The projects are partly funded by subsidies from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development.
The agency also manages Section 8 vouchers. Residents were last able to apply for the vouchers, which currently have a waitlist of 94 people, back in 2004.
Read more of this past weekend’s Hoboken cover story by clicking here.