CUSTIS: 15% UNEMPLOYMENT + 36% POVERTY RATE = FAILURE

Says Camden Experiment Has Failed

(CAMDEN, NJ) – Mayoral candidate Elton Custis today publicly claimed that the “Camden Experiment” is a documented failure, using the latest unemployment and poverty data to make his case.

“For 20 years, Camden residents have been sold and told that a savior is coming, that better days are ahead, and that ‘Camden is rising,’” said Elton Custis, mayoral candidate and Camden School District Advisory Board Member. “The savior hasn’t come, things aren’t better, and the only things rising in this city are concrete buildings owned by millionaires, paid for by taxpayers where Camden residents.”

According to data on the Courier Post’s website, provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for February 2021 was 15.1%. Moreover, more than one third of Camden residents live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 data. Camden’s poverty rate is 36.4%.

“When more than a third of your city suffers in poverty, you cannot claim that things are alright,” said Custis. “Nothing is alright!”

Custis and his team, Carmen Lozada-Cooper, Hector Rojas, and Carla Benson for council, are running on a Residents First agenda.

The Residents First Plan includes the following:

• Open up Camden’s economy by attracting new businesses to the city, ending the politics of only a few select businesses being given an opportunity

• Rebuild, resurface, or replace every street in the city over the next four years, improving infrastructure, creating jobs, and inspiring hope

• Utilize community benefits agreements to address local hiring, job training, and living wages, in addition to improved infrastructure

• Build public-private partnerships to foster a new era of corporate responsibility in Camden, where corporations directly contribute to Camden’s local economy

• Develop youth programming for Camden’s next generation of leaders to have adequate recreational and community opportunities

“Camden needs wholesale change,” said Custis. “That’s everything from upgrading our infrastructure to providing resources and opportunities for our young people.”