Were it not for her low credit score, Shalyce Davis would’ve moved out of her moldy Monmouth County apartment a long time ago. The single mom says she’s tried in vain to find a new place for her and her three-year-old to live. And though she’s “come so close,” in the end that one number — 600 — is what’s keeping her and her son from a better apartment. And a better life.
The frustration in her voice is high as she explains that she’s done all she can. She tells me she applied for affordable housing through the Affordable Housing Alliance and waited years — yes, years — “just to finally get on a list, to be approved, and be entered in the lottery.”
For New Jerseyans in need of affordable or subsidized housing that’s just how it goes — there’s an application process, there’s a wait, which can often be a very long one, and sometimes for some programs, a lottery.
For high-demand programs, there’s even a lottery just to get on the waitlist. And if that’s not an indication of how bad the affordable housing shortage is here, I don’t know what is.
Just weeks ago, after her own long wait and after “winning the lottery,” Shalyce’s application for a spacious, two-bedroom apartment in SaltAire, a brand new luxury rental complex in Atlantic Highlands, was denied.
In the SaltAire complex, some units are set aside for affordable housing applicants. For a family of 2, those making less than $78,474 a year can apply and are considered moderate-income, or low-income if they make $49,046 a year.
But only those who meet the credit requirement — a score of 650 — can get in. Shalyce was just 50 points short of approval and says despite hoping and praying for an exception, that ask was also denied.
“It was just like, ‘Oh well, you didn’t make it ...Next!’,” she says. “And I started feeling like, you know, Atlantic Highlands, it’s a really nice area and it’s predominantly white, you know what I mean? I guess they don’t really want no Black people in there or at least not us, not me or my son.”
Kalian Companies, the developer of SaltAire and about a dozen other residential properties in New Jersey, didn’t return a request for comment.
Credit score requirements for affordable housing units vary but housing advocates say many developers ask for scores as high as 700 — which falls in the good credit score category.
To expect her and others, who are low income — and who too often have to rely on credit cards just to get by — to have good credit, is unfair and unrealistic. Yes, it’s legal but should it be? Last year, a bill was introduced to try to change that.
“I worked so, so hard just to get to this point ...I really thought I was finally gonna get an apartment,” Shalyce says with a heavy sigh. “But because of one thing, just one thing, it was like ‘boom, disqualified.’”
She says she moved into her current home three years ago when her credit score was much higher. But at the height of the pandemic — just months after giving birth — Shalyce, who worked as a home health aide, was suddenly out of work and “had no option but to live off of my credit cards.”
Her credit plunged but at that point, what else could she do?
Since then she’s been working hard to raise her score. She tells me she’s been making consistent payments and trying to bring balances down as much as possible. “I always try to pay more than the minimum,” she says. “Trying to pay cards down, pay cards off.”
Doing that while paying all her bills is hard, she says, but she’s finally getting back on track. And she even landed a new job at a hospital a couple of months ago. She’s sure her credit will eventually improve, she says. “But it takes time, and in the meantime,” she tells me, she and her son, who’s often sick with respiratory issues, are both “stuck in a moldy apartment.”
That’s what worries her because she knows it’s not good for her son’s health. Or hers, I tell her. “Yeah,” she says, “but mostly, I worry about him.”
Tracy Rogers, a housing advocate who leads the Asbury Park Affordable Housing Coalition, is concerned for both of them. No one should have to experience what she’s going through, he said. No one.
Still, he tells me he sees it happen way too often. That’s why he and other advocates have for the past two years been working to get a bill passed that would change the way landlords establish creditworthiness for affordable housing applicants like Shalyce.
If passed, bill S-934 would require landlords to conduct an individualized assessment of an applicant’s income, employment, and rent or mortgage and utility payment history. The assessment would include an evaluation of a range of other factors, too, including health history, household budgets and payment plans.
So far, it hasn’t gotten any traction. The New Jersey Apartment Association, last year opposed a similar bill, calling it “overly intrusive” and arguing that “landlords don’t have the means to conduct individualized assessments of all renters.” The group also believes requesting sensitive information such as health history is inappropriate.
What’s really inappropriate, Rogers says, is requiring a high credit score and using that “as a loophole to keep the Black and brown people who need these [affordable housing] units most, out of them.”
“A lot of these towns, these developers, they didn’t really want these [affordable housing] units in the first place but had to create them to comply with state mandates to build them,” he says. “So, what do they do to weed out as many as they can? Ask for high credit scores.”
Of course, credit requirements apply to all — not just to people of color — but undoubtedly Black and Latino people are disproportionately affected.
In 2019, the share of Black people in poverty was 1.8 times greater than their share among the general population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The share of Hispanics in poverty was also higher at 1.5 times more than their share in the general population.
And a higher percentage of people of color have low credit, too: Young adults in majority Black and Hispanic communities tend to have lower credit scores compared with those who live in majority white communities, research by the Urban Institute think tank shows.
Connie Pascale, a board member of the New Jersey Tenants Organization, says that tracks. He says we can’t forget that racial discrimination — both intentional and structural — has long been at the core of why so many people of color have low credit scores in the first place.
It dates back to before the Civil Rights movement when communities were segregated. Access to mainstream credit was only available to white borrowers and white neighborhoods. Black people’s access to credit that was affordable and sustainable was very limited. They had no recourse but to use fringe lenders and pay much more than they should’ve.
But even now, financial experts say subprime lending options are still more visible in underserved communities. The truth is some things simply still haven’t changed.
And for Shalyce, what that means is that despite doing everything she could, she still fell short, she was still told no — you can’t live here. You’re going to have to stay where you are.
Daysi Calavia-Robertson may be reached at dcalavia-robertson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Instagram at @presspassdaysi or Twitter @presspassdaysi. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
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