New Community Corporation - Financial Uncertainties

Financial Uncertainties

In 2001, after taking over the Essex Valley Visiting Nurse Association, NCC and its direct affiliates employed approximately 2,000 employees and managed or had developed 2,818 units of housing. However, financial pressures and accumulated debt stemming from the organization's rapid expansion in the 1990s, and from reductions in federal housing subsidies, required an assessment of priorities and a rationalization of programs lacking sufficient financial support (i.e., from grants, donations, fees or sales). By late 2004, several of the for-profit business ventures were closed, including the building components factory, the print shop, the fast-food restaurant at the Pathmark store, the mailbox store, and the exercise spa. The 754-unit, five-story Douglass-Harrison housing complex built in the 1930s and sold to NCC in 1983 for $50 by Prudential Insurance was closed in 2005. Douglass-Harrison was difficult to maintain and its very small apartments and lack of elevators failed to meet modern housing standards (NCC plans to build 130 modern housing units on the site). Also, several branches of NCC's medical day care program were closed. By 2002, there was a reduction in managerial staffing at the corporate level. Also, in 2001 New Community and Babyland Family Services terminated their cooperative agreement to jointly develop new facilities and programs and integrate them within NCC's broad array of activities.