In episode 35, Steve Jobin, the president and CEO of the Raritan Bay Area YMCA in New Jersey, shares how the Y has transformed its role from a traditional recreation provider into a catalyst for affordable housing and community health. He traces the Y’s history from its 1912 origins as a rooming house for industrial workers through a devastating 1997 fire that forced the organization to reimagine its mission. Partnering with the city, the Y helped develop and now manages a modern recreation facility with pools, gyms, an indoor track and a community theater to meet core health and wellness needs while setting the stage for deeper community impact.
Over time, the board’s longstanding commitment to serving “the indigent,” combined with Jobin’s housing authority background, pushed the Y to define health more broadly through the lens of social determinants of health. Housing quality, safety, and affordability emerged as critical drivers of chronic disease and overall well-being. After clear evidence of unsafe housing, the Y began tackling policy and formed collective impact partnerships with the city, nonprofits, hospitals and faith-based organizations.
Further Details
Ten years ago, the Y purchased a downtown rooming house and converted its first floor into a case management center and food pantry, using food insecurity work to build trust with vulnerable residents. From there, they expanded into permanent supportive housing, starting with a home for a domestic violence survivor and her children. Leveraging grant funding and nonprofit tax advantages, and collaborating with organizations like Coming Home of Middlesex County, the Y now operates around 100-plus housing units, offering deeply affordable rents and long-term stability via leases.
Jobin highlights powerful outcomes: families moving from shelters into clean, furnished homes; parents able to access childcare and work; children sleeping better, performing better in school and engaging in recreation. He urges community rec leaders to widen their definition of health, start with local needs — like food insecurity or a single partnership project — and embrace partnerships where sometimes they lead and sometimes they support—always pushing together to solve big community challenges.
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