By Dan Antonellis

Region Nine UAW Housing Corporation understands firsthand the origins of New Jersey's housing affordability crisis.

We were founded by the United Auto Workers Union in 1970 to address a workforce housing crisis caused by Mahwah's attempts to exclude factory workers. The UAW and its then-region director, Martin Gerber, were leaders in the struggle for fair housing.

Mahwah, like suburban towns across New Jersey, was luring industry out of nearby cities in the decades following World War II. While the town's elected leaders were happy to have a Ford plant in town to bolster the tax rolls, they tried to prevent the highly diverse workforce from living in their exclusive enclave -- which was overwhelmingly white.

Thanks to restrictive zoning policies that artificially inflated the cost of housing, practically all of the 5,500 workers at the Ford plant were forced to commute long distances each day. Ford even organized van pools to bring in workers from out of state.

Towns like Mahwah were forced to change these restrictive policies because of a series of landmark decisions from the New Jersey Supreme Court. Known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine, they prevent towns from using their zoning powers to exclude low-income residents and families of color.

Thanks to the Mount Laurel Doctrine, our mission has expanded over the decades, from workforce housing to providing supportive and wraparound services to working families, seniors and people with disabilities.

Yet despite the nearly 1,200 affordable housing units we maintain throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we must constantly turn away families in need for lack of availability.

That's because, despite New Jersey's strong laws, towns are constantly attempting to backslide.

They were emboldened by the policies of former Gov. Chris Christie, whose administration made it almost impossible to build new affordable housing in New Jersey. As a result, Region Nine UAW Housing Corporation, which is based in New Brunswick, has turned to Pennsylvania and New York, where affordable development receives more local support.

But now, after nearly a decade of gridlock that prevented proper enforcement of the Mount Laurel Doctrine, we're finally seeing progress with our state's fair housing laws. We are encouraged that the Murphy administration will set a new course.

About 220 towns across the state, from Woodbridge to Scotch Plains to Maplewood, now have local fair housing plans in place, paving the way for the construction of tens of thousands of new homes affordable to working families - thanks to a series of rulings by the New Jersey Supreme Court that got the Mount Laurel process back on track.

As part of these settlements, towns are employing a number of innovative strategies to tackle the housing crisis head on.

Municipalities are working with non-profits like ours to develop both mixed-income and 100-percent-affordable projects that serve working families, seniors, the formerly homeless, people with disabilities and other families with special needs.

These types of developments require true partnerships at the local, state and even federal levels to finance and maintain. Local towns can help make these projects financially viable by approving payments in lieu of taxes or by using local affordable housing trust fund dollars earmarked specifically for this work. And the state and federal government provide low-interest loans, tax credits and other subsidies to get these projects off the ground.

The Mount Laurel Doctrine continues to be at the center of addressing the state's unmet need because it forces towns to focus on the problem of housing affordability and prevents them from throwing up roadblocks.

Thanks to the fair housing process currently underway, we're finally moving beyond the endless debates and empty rhetoric and getting real results.

The need is enormous.

Hundreds of thousands of working families throughout the state are looking to move into high-quality, affordable homes close to good schools, jobs and their families.

In New Jersey, thousands of aging parents of people with disabilities worry their children will have no place to go after they've passed. And seniors on fixed incomes live in fear that rising housing costs will force them to move away from the communities they've called home for decades.

We need to build on the success we're already achieving.

It's time for the state's remaining towns to come to the table and negotiate in good faith with housing advocates to get shovels in the ground as quickly as possible to build new homes for New Jersey's working families who have already waited too long.

Dan Antonellis is president of the Region Nine UAW Housing Corporation.

Follow NJ.com Opinion on Twitter @NJ_Opinion. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.