Petersen Commons Breaks Ground in Avenel for Veterans Housing

Sixty units. One hundred percent affordable. And a promise from the governor that this is the year New Jersey stops looking away from homeless veterans.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill stood in the Avenel section of Woodbridge on April 10 to mark the start of construction on Petersen Commons, a housing community for seniors and veterans that she framed as both a moral obligation and a budget priority. Sherrill, a Navy veteran herself, has made veteran homelessness a signature issue since taking office, and last month she told legislators exactly what she intended to do about it.

“This is the year we effectively end veteran homelessness in New Jersey,” Sherrill said during her March budget address.

That’s a bold line. Whether the administration can back it up depends heavily on the Bringing Veterans Home initiative, which the governor’s fiscal year 2027 budget funds at $11 million. The program works to move homeless veterans out of temporary placements and into stable, permanent housing. Since launch, it’s helped more than 1,450 veterans find permanent homes.

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and the New Jersey Department of Veterans Affairs are both expected to reach all known homeless veterans in the state this year. A specific deadline for a specific population. That kind of accountability is either a real commitment or a political overreach, and 2026 will reveal which.

Petersen Commons sits inside that larger push. The 60-unit development in Woodbridge gives priority to veterans while serving any adult 55 or older who qualifies on income. Construction is expected to wrap in the spring of 2027. Legislators and local officials joined Sherrill at the April 10 ceremony, which came just weeks after she attended a ribbon-cutting in Montvale for a six-unit apartment complex built for homeless and disabled veterans.

Smaller project. Same principle.

“Today’s event at Petersen Commons represents our commitment to ensuring every New Jerseyan, especially those who have served our country, can age with dignity in a safe, affordable place to call home,” Sherrill said. “As a military veteran, I am grateful to our partners for their shared efforts to expand affordable housing across New Jersey.”

Woodbridge isn’t a random choice. Middlesex County has a significant veteran population, and Avenel sits close enough to transit and services to make a senior housing development actually functional, not just symbolic. Proximity to the Northeast Corridor matters when you’re 65 and don’t drive.

The Petersen Commons project is one piece of what Sherrill described as a broader housing strategy. The fiscal year 2027 budget sets aside $70 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, money she specifically said must be protected so it builds housing that people can actually afford. First-time homebuyers would also see increased down payment support under the same plan.

Reporting by ROI-NJ first covered the Avenel ceremony and the budget details behind it.

Development projects in Jersey’s transit corridors have a mixed track record. Announcements come easy. Certificates of occupancy take longer. And affordable units have a way of disappearing into market-rate conversions when political winds shift. The Sherrill administration’s decision to tie veteran housing commitments directly to a budget number, $11 million for a named program, gives advocates something concrete to hold the state to.

Still, 60 units in Woodbridge doesn’t solve a statewide crisis. It helps specific people in a specific ZIP code. Done right, that matters enormously to the families inside those walls.

The real test comes in 2027, when Petersen Commons is supposed to open and when the administration’s pledge to reach every known homeless veteran is supposed to have been kept. That’s not a long runway. But Sherrill put the timeline out there herself, in a budget speech, on the record.

Spring of 2027. The clock is running.