Mount Laurel was a small, rural farming community until it was hit with massive suburban growth from Philadelphia in the later 1960s. Some families, whose history had resided there for centuries, were suddenly priced out of buying property. In 1970, at a meeting about a proposal for affordable housing, held at an all black church in Mount Laurel, Mayor Bill Haines summed up the newcomers' perspective by saying: "If you people can't afford to live in our town, then you'll just have to leave."