Union County Nonprofit Takes Independent Approach to Affordable Housing

Community Access Unlimited’s executive director, Sid Blanchard, right, with the organization’s new headquarters building being renovated in Elizabeth, NJ

ELIZABETH, NJ––Community Access Unlimited has been taking a novel approach to affordable housing advocacy work for several decades. CAU, which provides services for people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations, is one of the first nonprofits in the nation to pursue directly the federal low-income housing tax credit to acquire property.

“We’ve pioneered new ways of doing affordable housing that are both successful and integrated by people with disabilities, people without disabilities, people from different income levels, from market rental income, to people of very low income, and also from mixed use of residential and commercial space,” Sid Blanchard, CAU’s executive director, tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. “It’s a unique model for not-for-profits, because, particularly in New Jersey, nonprofits have been addicted to the heroin, if you will, of governmental money, with a lot of governmental regulations that come with it, that have the unintentional result, most often, of causing the nonprofit to go out of business, and the housing to have huge deferred maintenance and poor management.”