Newark launches search engine to help renters find housing they can afford

Rental assistance

Newark has launched a housing search engine to help city residents — and those who want to be — find living spaces that match what they need in term of rental range, number of bedrooms, distance from mass transit and other requirements. AP

Newark is trying to make it easier for residents to find affordable places to live amid the city’s building boom.

The city launched a free online search engine last week that allows apartment seekers to enter the range of rent they can pay, how many bedrooms they need and other criteria, to produce an interactive map with matching locations.

The search engine, Newark Housing Search, includes private and publicly subsidized properties and all sites owned by the Newark Housing Authority.

“I am committed to producing and preserving more affordable housing, so that more individuals and families can establish or strengthen roots in Newark,” Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement.

“Part of this mission is making it easier for people to search for the type of affordable housing they need. No matter where I go in Newark, people will approach me and ask for help in finding a home they can afford. This housing locator will help fill a gap that has long existed,” the statement said.

Officials say the search engine also benefits developers and landlords eager to market their properties to the general public or specific types of tenants, including veterans, the elderly or people with disabilities.

Officials hope the search engine will help Newark residents and others benefit from the accelerated construction of new apartment towers downtown and smaller building and rehabilitation projects throughout the city. At the same time, Newark is facing an affordable housing shortage, and the city has encouraged development of market-rate housing while making creation of affordable units a condition of those projects.

For example, this spring, the mayor and council expanded an inclusionary zoning ordinance to require that 20% of units in apartment buildings of 15 units or more be reserved for people with low and moderate incomes, after the law had previously applied only to buildings with 30 or more units.

The new housing search engine includes a basic search function with three criteria: rent range, number of bathrooms and number of bedrooms. There’s also an advanced option to narrow a search to more specific characteristics, including housing type, where the 19 menu options range from assisted living, to triplex, to a shared housing/roommate situation, to mobile home park.

Other criteria include smoking or non-smoking, distance to mass transit and the language spoken by the landlord.

Users can navigate their search results by clicking on an icon representing each match on a map of the city, revealing photographs, a contact number and other information. Or, users can scroll down a column on the right of the screen containing the same photos and information.

The search engine is supported by a staffed help desk home hunters can call toll free from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 877-428-8844.

NewarkHousingSearch results page

A sample results page from the NewarkHousingSearch.com search engine launched by the City of Newark to help residents find housing they need at a price they can afford.City of Newark

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com

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