By Jeff Tittel, The Jersey Vindicator, Oct. 13, 2026
I grew up believing affordable housing and environmental protection belong in the same sentence.
I was born in Newark and raised on the Newark-Hillside border in federally built workers’ housing. My father was a union factory worker and civil rights activist. My grandparents were labor radicals who held rent parties to help neighbors facing eviction. Housing was not an academic issue. It was about whether working people could keep a roof over their heads.
But I also learned what happens when working people get housing without environmental protection. Our home was down the street from an operating foundry. The pollution was so thick you could write your name in the soot on cars. The local stream was contaminated with industrial pollution. I remember that throwing a match into the water could make it flare.
Then I spent summers at Camp Midvale in Ringwood. It was a different world. You could breathe the air, swim in the streams, and drink the water. The camp brought together trade unionists, civil rights activists, farmworkers and conservationists. People including James Baldwin, Cesar Chavez, Joan Baez and Ossie Davis came through.
That contrast shaped my environmental philosophy: Working people should never have to choose between affordable housing and a healthy environment. I was also a founder of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and the Environment, which sought to advance both goals.
The New Jersey Developers’ great land rush
That is why I am concerned about Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s housing plan. New Jersey desperately needs affordable homes. But the governor’s September 2026 plan risks turning a housing crisis into a land rush for developers.
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