Helping Government Get It Right
We advocate for policies and funding that ensure a functional, equitable, and humane homeless response system.
Legislative Advocacy
Homelessness in New Jersey has surged 57% from 2022-2025, pushing the state's response system to the brink.
We are leading statewide advocacy efforts to ensure New Jersey sufficiently invests in our homeless response system to begin to turn the tide on this growing crisis. We also work to ensure government policies are shaped by the people closest to the issue — individuals with lived experience of homelessness and frontline homeless service providers.
Together, we help the government get it right by advocating for policies including strengthening Code Blue and Code Red protections during life-threatening weather emergencies, increasing shelter per diem rates that have remained stagnant for many providers for decades, and ensuring behavioral health services are offered onsite at and integrated into homeless service agencies.
​
Government Agencies
NJCEH partners with state agencies, including the Department and Human Services, Department of Community Affairs, and Department of Health, to strengthen New Jersey’s response to homelessness. Our work includes advocating for more effective licensing and regulatory practices, supporting agencies in implementing client-centered responses, and ensuring that policies prioritize the real needs of people experiencing homelessness, including access to education, transportation, health care, and affordable housing.
Local Advocacy
We are fighting back against the criminalization of homelessness across New Jersey by opposing local ordinances that punish people for surviving without housing, including bans on sleeping, resting, or camping in public spaces that can result in fines and even jail time. At the same time, we provide guidance to municipalities to advance humane, effective solutions to homelessness. These approaches include helping communities invest and leverage local funding sources such as municipal homelessness trust funds, establish Mayor’s Task Forces on Homelessness or local Offices of Homelessness Prevention, coordinate homelessness “sprints” to quickly connect people to shelter and housing, and develop compassionate encampment outreach practices.
Local Advocacy
We are fighting back against the criminalization of homelessness across New Jersey by opposing local ordinances that punish people for surviving without housing, including bans on sleeping, resting, or camping in public spaces that can result in fines and even jail time. At the same time, we provide guidance to municipalities to advance humane, effective solutions to homelessness. These approaches include helping communities invest and leverage local funding sources such as municipal homelessness trust funds, establish Mayor’s Task Forces on Homelessness or local Offices of Homelessness Prevention, coordinate homelessness “sprints” to quickly connect people to shelter and housing, and develop compassionate encampment outreach practices.