December 2, 2009   

Statement of Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr., Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens and CEO of Central Jersey Community Development Corporation (formerly First Baptist CDC) concerning $25 million foreclosure prevention and affordable housing partnership Today I am pleased to announce a $25 million partnership between the Central Jersey Community Development Corporation (CJCDC) and APD Solutions, a national neighborhood revitalization firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The purpose of this partnership is to expand the efforts of CJCDC that assist families to either avoid or recover from home foreclosure. The staff and volunteers of CJCDC have been working for more than two years to help families facing foreclosure. In the spring of 2008 we launched our Housing Assistance and Recovery Program (HARP) with the help of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York (FHLBNY), Magyar Bank and the New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA). HARP provides certified housing and mortgage counseling. It also includes the option of last resort. With this option CJCDC buys a home to prevent foreclosure and leases the home back to the former owners with the intent of the owners buying the house back, at cost, after we help the family restore their financial footing. But this work has had limited results and inadequate funding. This partnership with APDS will help us broaden the scope of this work and leverage additional resources. Our new partnership has two core objectives: 1. to buy nonperforming loans from banks. This will enable us to help borrowers resolve their mortgage problems because we will own the mortgage; and 2. To buy vacant bank-owned properties from banks in bulk and convert those houses into affordable housing for displaced families, first time home buyers and low to

moderate income families. Today there are more than ten thousand bank-owned properties in New Jersey. We will be working with local, county and state officials to identify existing programs and resources which we can supplement with our private capital to help families and stabilize neighborhoods. APD Solutions is working in 20 states providing services and strategies that impact community development. The CEO of APDS is Vaughn Irons, a former executive with Freddie Mac and the leading executive in our country matching significant investment capital with meaningful community development work. The Board of Directors of the Central Jersey Community Development Corporation welcomes Mr. Irons and his team to New Jersey. We look forward to working with them and creating sustainable solutions to the foreclosure crisis in our state. This initial $25 million dollars will leverage another $25 million in funds that will help an estimated 625 families. The partnership will initially target eight communities in five NJ counties - Woodbridge, Trenton, New Brunswick, Franklin (Somerset), Burlington City, Plainfield, Old Bridge and Plainsboro. The CJCDC HARP program will continue to offer loss mitigation counseling, court mediation and family support services to families facing foreclosure. In 2009 we assisted more than 400 families. But the foreclosure problem is getting worse and our workload is increasing daily. There were 18,108 properties with foreclosure filings in the third quarter of 2009, an increase of 45% from the previous quarter. This means that more families need more help and we are more committed to creating strategies that will address this crisis. The ADPS partnership will enable CJCDC to demonstrate that we don't have to give up and that we can save both families and communities when we can access the kind of expertise and capital provided by APD Solutions. Our goal is to raise $400 million dollars in 2010 to support our work. This partnership with APDS starts us on our way.