Inn an editorial, Jersey City mayoral candidate Jim McGreevey responds to a commercial from Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2), an election opponent, criticizing his record on affordable housing.
Commissioner O’Dea’s criticism overlooks a simple, documented reality: during the decade I served as Mayor of Woodbridge Township (1992–2002), virtually all housing in the community was affordable to working- and middle-class families.
Unlike in Jersey City today, there was no affordability crisis requiring special carve-outs or subsidy-heavy construction.
Woodbridge was itself an affordable, stable community where families could buy homes, rent apartments, and build lives without facing the dislocation that many residents of urban centers endure today.
-
Median home value: $155,800 (about $165,000 in 2002 dollars, adjusted for inflation).
-
Median contract rent: $794 per month.
-
Median household income: $60,683 in 1999 dollars.
-
Owner-occupied housing: 70.6% of all units, reflecting a majority of families owning their homes.
By any federal benchmark, these numbers demonstrate affordability. Housing costs for both owners and renters were proportionate to income, and the majority of residents were building equity through ownership.
In effect, the entire township functioned as affordable housing.
Affordability was not just a function of home values but also of access to mortgage credit. During the 1990s, interest rates fell significantly, from 8–9% at the start of the decade to around 6.5% by 2002 (Freddie Mac / FRED data).
This meant that families in Woodbridge could more easily finance homes, and rising incomes meant they could do so without resorting to risky lending practices.
Again, there was no structural shortage of affordability that required intervention through subsidized housing construction.
While New Jersey has always had high property taxes, Census and NJ Treasury data show that Woodbridge’s real estate tax bills aligned with home values and were manageable for working families.
Moreover, inflation between 1992 and 2002 amounted to approximately 28% (Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U), a steady and moderate rise. Woodbridge’s housing costs tracked inflation rather than dramatically outpacing it, thereby preserving affordability throughout the decade.
Commissioner O’Dea’s criticism assumes that a mayor’s record on housing is measured solely by the production of subsidized “affordable units.” But in Woodbridge during the 1990s, the baseline market already produced affordability.
With median home values around $155,800, median incomes near $61,000, and rents under $800, there was no affordability crisis to solve.
Families, whether first-time homebuyers or long-term renters, had access to stable, working-class housing across the township. In this context, “building affordable housing” was unnecessary because Woodbridge itself was affordable housing.
The charge that my administration “failed” to construct affordable housing misreads the reality of Woodbridge during my tenure.
From 1992 to 2002, the township was predominantly working- and middle-class, characterized by modest home values, manageable rents, accessible mortgage credit, and high rates of homeownership.
The community did not face the affordability pressures that cities like Jersey City face today.
In truth, the need to construct “affordable units” never arose, because almost every home in Woodbridge was already affordable.