Queen Latifah returns home to Brick City to build desperately needed affordable housing
(HOLLYWOOD, CA) Exclusive News: Dressed in a lime green button-down shirt, matching slacks and loafers and a hard hat Queen Latifah gripped a shovel and tossed dirt into a garden box of soil, smiling. “I’m a little bit emotional that we got walls up, we got windows,” the rapper and actress said, standing in front of three-story plywood-skinned structures that will soon become townhouses
On Tuesday, Latifah revisited her birthplace of Newark for a South Ward real estate development groundbreaking ceremony spearheaded by BlueSugar Corp., of which Latifah is co-president, alongside builders Life Assets Development and GonSosa Development.
Latifah — born Dana Elaine Owens at St. Michael’s Hospital — said she started looking to invest in the properties in 2006. The development project was revealed publicly in 2016, and construction was supposed to begin two years ago, but hurdles cropped up.
“It took a while, but we stayed with it and it changed and it morphed, and we stayed with what we needed to do, and the timing is right right now for this place to rise,” Latifah said, referring to the project’s name, RISE Living. The name, also an acronym for “Rita is Still Everywhere” is a tribute to her mother, Rita, a former Newark schoolteacher.
“I’m proud to be from here,” Latifah said, joined for the ceremony by New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and other leaders. “I grew up around here playing in West Side Park, a block away,” Latifah reminisced. “My grandfather’s hardware store was blocks from here. I drove past this block. I saw what was needed on this block, houses that weren’t lived in. Some were really dilapidated, and so I thought, ‘Why not here?’ ”
