Being the first Black woman to head the construction of a significant affordable housing project in New Jersey would further enhance the already excellent CV of Adenah Bayoh, who escaped war-torn Liberia as a kid and has subsequently gone on to establish a booming real estate portfolio.
The 46-year-old Bayoh intends to start relocating families into a facility she is developing on the South Side of Newark, where she was raised, early next year. When the five-story building is completed, it will include forty flats, all of which will be reasonably priced for families with low to moderate incomes. According to Bayoh, five of the apartments will also be reserved for newly homeless families in need of transitional accommodation as they rebuild their lives.
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However, the structure offers more than simply lodging. According to Bayoh, families moving into each apartment would receive a computer and free Wi-Fi, as reported by Gothamist. Additionally, free on-site after-school tutoring will be available to the building’s residents’ children. Bayoh claimed that by establishing alliances with neighborhood institutions like the Newark YMCA, she has made these extra programs feasible.
Building homes that only “occupy space” is not Bayoh’s intention, she stated.
Bayoh stated, “But really building buildings that solve generational issues. That solves problems for communities that we talk about all of the time. I’m not interested in building anything that is not impactful.”
New Jersey, like many other states in the union, is experiencing a housing problem. More than 200,000 affordable units are needed in Garden State, according to experts, to keep up with demand for housing. The state is about to embark on its second cycle of state-mandated affordable housing development this autumn, which will require communities in New Jersey to build a specific number of affordable units over the next ten years to address the growing housing shortage.
Gov. Phil Murphy encouraged the construction of additional homes and signed several measures of affordable housing in March.
“We need to keep building. We need to do it equitably, and we need to do it fast,” he said.
The following criteria are met by Bayoh’s project in the state’s affordable housing strategy: Using a tax credit scheme to finance and extend the development that local, state, and federal lawmakers agree is essential to addressing the housing problem, it serves as an example of urban growth in an underserved community.
A potential candidate for governor, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, has advocated for an extension of the low-income housing tax credit program. The Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris, who is running for vice president, also just unveiled a housing policy plan that would double financing for the initiative.
When Bayoh was in her mid-20s, her real estate career officially began. Her first revenue-producing asset was a three-family house in the middle-class Irvington neighborhood, which is close to her birthplace of Newark, that she bought in 2001.
“When you grew up in Newark, Irvington was like the next thing that your family did. We call it getting out the hood,” Bayoh stated.
She rented the other two flats and lived in one. She stated she was able to purchase four more properties because of the rental money. However, because she had taken out subprime mortgages to finance the houses, she was confronted with several foreclosures when the 2008 financial crisis struck.
“I said to myself … this can either be the defining moment of my young life. This can either make me or break me. The choice is mine,” Bayoh stated.
Bayoh added, “And what I did was I rolled up my sleeves, and I started fighting the banks.”
She said that she was able to retain two of her properties through legal negotiations with some of the banks. Even though her credit suffered, she wasn’t bankrupt like many others who were impacted by the subprime mortgage crisis. Pancakes, though, were another possibility made possible by the setback. More precisely, the Pancake International House.
Bayoh claimed that she and her companions would frequently spend the late hours of the night at the nearby IHOP while she was a Teaneck college student. She was shocked to see that Irvington lacked any good casual eating options.
“All we had at the time was two run-down diners, Popeye’s, McDonald’s, just go down the list of the fast food greatest hits. And I just didn’t think that was right,” she said.
She recalled that the mayor had told her about a nearby cafe that was up for sale at the time. In 2007, she bought the diner and converted it into an IHOP. Bayoh has since opened seven restaurants in total, four of which are IHOPs.
The township claims that because of her business endeavors, she is now Irvington’s second-largest employer.
Irvington Mayor Tony Vauss stated, “I can’t even quantify what she has done for this community. And it seems like it’s only the beginning.”
In his third term as township mayor, Vauss, who has presided over the community since 2014, referred to Bayoh as “an inspiration to every young girl that has come from humble beginnings.”
Bayoh made the significant decision to return to the home market in 2010. Together with a partner, she set out to revitalize Irvington General Hospital, which had deteriorated over time and closed in 2006. At the location of the hospital, the couple built about 300 units of reasonably priced housing.
In her most recent endeavor to provide affordable homes, Bayoh was able to get a highly competitive tax credit that lowers investment costs.
Over the past 40 years, such kinds of tax credits have contributed to the financing of almost 70,000 units, according to Melanie Walter, the director of the New Jersey Housing Mortgage and Finance Agency.
“This is actually the most successful public-private partnership in U.S. history in terms of the amount of private investment generated using,” Walter stated.
Walter said, “The state has completed 25,000 new units through the tax credit in just the last nine years.”
Developers whose projects are backed by these tax credits are typically able to fund most if not all, of their projects due to the tax credits’ attractiveness to investors. Thus, truly affordable housing developments that have extremely narrow profit margins because of the low rents become financially viable.
Although all that stands between Bayoh’s 40-unit project and its completion are some pipes, beams, and a partially poured concrete slab, she already has her sights set on the next project, which is another fully affordable building that will be located directly across the street; when both buildings are finished, the block will have 103 new affordable housing units.
Bayoh expressed, “This project I want to do is different. I want to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do for the community that they deserve.”
