Building community and finding strength in a low-income market

Pilar Hogan Closkey, Executive Director, Saint Joseph’s Carpenter Society
 
Challenge:  To help low-income families in the historic, but struggling, city of Camden, NJ, thrive in place, while revitalizing the city itself. 


 
Fair housing advocates often argue that the best way to help low-income families is to move them out of their communities. Camden, NJ, particularly East Camden, is exactly the type of area these advocates like to pull from.
 
Camden, once a vital hub for industry and transportation, is now one of the poorest cities in the nation. The population of 89,000 is predominantly black and Hispanic. Forty percent of Camden adults lack a high school diploma, and unemployment is twice the national average.
 
But Camden has a rich communal history, and strong family and social institutions as well. Nevertheless, some advocates insist that the best way to help low-income families in this type of area with housing is to push for vouchers and counseling to move them to “better” neighborhoods. It is in these “better” neighborhoods -- the advocates say -- that affordable housing should be built.
 
But at what cost? This strategy can tear families away from their core social groups, while the communities they leave behind are slowly robbed of cohesion and identity.
 
That’s why, instead of moving people away from low-income areas, organizations such as SJCS try to bring job opportunities, public transportation, recreation centers, parks, food access, education and health care to those areas in order to revitalize them for everyone’s benefit. 
 
Affordable housing is an essential component. It prevents displacement of low-income families, an excellent first step in neighborhood stabilization. SJCS’s approach to affordable housing is unusual: We acquire abandoned homes that are a blight on the community, rehabilitate them and then sell them to neighborhood families. In so doing, we improve the physical quality of the area, discouraging crime and vagrancy. In addition, residents become more invested in their homes and more engaged in their community.
 
And we’ve been at it quite a long time. In 1985, a real estate market did not exist in East Camden, and there were abandoned homes everywhere. SJCS began acquiring and rehabbing these houses, pairing one house at a time with a family. 
 
Creating a sense of community around homeownership was essential as well. Future homeowners met each other at required group education classes, and rehab areas were kept to just a few blocks, which compounded the positive effects, and created a sense of pride as the neighborhood improved before their eyes.
 
At first, houses were rehabbed by volunteer work teams and prices were low -- initial houses sold for around $20,000. Today, houses are rehabbed by professional contractors, and sell for between $70,000 and $150,000.
 
Over 3,200 people have completed homeowner education classes and the vast majority of buyers are neighborhood residents or have some history within the city. Eighty-five percent of the original SJCS homebuyers, or their families, still own their homes, some for nearly 30 years.  And, the foreclosure rate of SJCS buyers remains at 4 percent. 
 
“This is a blessing. I never thought it would look this nice.  My family and friends kept telling me to move, but I didn’t want to give up on my house,” says resident Rosa Alicea, who participated in a homeowner occupied rehabilitation program. “Instead of my house being the ugliest one on the block, it is the most beautiful one.  This has raised my self-esteem.”
 
Certain target neighborhoods now boast a building vacancy rate of 3 percent, compared to an overall city rate of 15 to 20 percent.  In a recent Success Measures resident survey, 75 percent of residents were somewhat satisfied, satisfied, or very satisfied living in the community.  Fifty percent said the main reason to live in the neighborhood was to be near family and friends.  
 
While housing was the starting point and will continue to be pivotal in East Camden’s revitalization, SJCS hopes to focus on other aspects of neighborhood health, such as local businesses, park programming, street festivals, and pop-up parks.