Asian Community Development Corporation

Last updated
Asian Community Development Corporation
Asian Community Development Corporation Logo.JPG
FoundedMay 29, 1987 [1]
Type 501(c)(3)
Focus Community Development
Area served
Greater Boston with a focus on Chinatown, Boston
Method Affordable housing for renters and owners; [2] promoting economic development; fostering leadership development; building capacity within the community and advocating on behalf of the Asian American community
Key people
Angie Liou, Executive Director
Revenue
$1,990,788 (Gross support and revenue, 2011) [3]
Website asiancdc.org

The Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) is a 501(c)(3) community development organization founded in 1987 with a focus on serving the Asian American community of Greater Boston. [4] This organization is centered upon preserving the culture and revitalizing Boston's Chinatown. [5]

Contents

History

The corporation began on May 29, 1987, in response to economic needs within the community.

Programs

ACDC runs a variety of programs for individuals and families living in the Greater Boston region as well as the traditional Chinatown neighborhood. The corporation's stated goal through these programs is to "foster new leadership and give low and moderate income residents the tools and resources they need to stabilize their housing which may include buying their homes, participating in the change and growth of their neighborhoods. and contributing more fully to economic and civic life throughout the region." [6] These programs include Community Organizing and Planning, Youth Programs, Housing Counseling and Assistance, and Real estate development.

Selected program descriptions

Real estate development

The Asian Community Development Corporation has developed more than 500 affordable housing units, developed a home ownership program that has helped double the rate of ownership in Chinatown and developed an energy efficiency program.

Related Research Articles

Roxbury, Boston Neighborhood of Boston in Massachusetts, United States

Roxbury is a neighborhood within the city of Boston, Massachusetts.

Mattapan Neighborhood of Boston in Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Mattapan is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. Historically a section of neighboring Dorchester, Mattapan became a part of Boston when Dorchester was annexed in 1870. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 36,480, with the majority of its population immigrants. Like other neighborhoods of the late 19th and early 20th century, Mattapan developed, residentially and commercially, as the railroads and streetcars made downtown Boston increasingly accessible. Predominantly residential, Mattapan is a mix of public housing, small apartment buildings, single-family houses, and two- and three-family houses. Blue Hill Avenue and Mattapan Square, where Blue Hill Avenue, River Street, and Cummins Highway meet, are the commercial heart of the neighborhood, home to banks, law offices, restaurants, and retail shops. The new Mattapan Branch of the Boston Public library opened 2009, at a cost of more than $4 million. Mattapan has a large portion of green space within the neighborhood. The Harambee Park, the Franklin Park Zoo, the Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, Clark-Cooper Community Gardens, and historic Forest Hill Cemetery can all be considered green space within the neighborhood of Mattapan. Mattapan's demographics are diverse, with a large population of Haitians, Caribbean immigrants, and African Americans. Mattapan has public services such as a recently renovated community health center, and constable services. Mattapan has a trolley running through it, which is accessible via Ashmont.

Supportive housing is a combination of housing and services intended as a cost-effective way to help people live more stable, productive lives, and is an active "community services and funding" stream across the United States. Supportive housing is widely believed to work well for those who face the most complex challenges—individuals and families confronted with homelessness and who also have very low incomes and/or serious, persistent issues that may include substance use disorders, mental health, HIV/AIDS, chronic illness, diverse disabilities or other serious challenges to stable housing. Supportive housing can be coupled with such social services as job training, life skills training, alcohol and substance use disorder treatment, community support services, and case management to populations in need of assistance. Supportive housing is intended to be a pragmatic solution that helps people have better lives while reducing, to the extent feasible, the overall cost of care. As community housing, supportive housing can be developed as mixed income, scattered site housing not only through the traditional route of low income and building complexes.

Sampan is a newspaper based in Chinatown in Boston, Massachusetts. It is New England's only bilingual Chinese and English newspaper. The newspaper was founded in 1972 by volunteers of the Asian American Civic Association, then known as the Chinese American Civic Association; its slogan is "the only bilingual Chinese-English newspaper in New England." It is distributed throughout Greater Boston and covers news of Boston's Chinatown as well as the Greater Boston Asian American community.

Chinatown, Boston Neighborhood of Boston in Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Chinatown, Boston is a neighborhood located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only surviving historic ethnic Chinese enclave in New England since the demise of the Chinatowns in Providence, Rhode Island and Portland, Maine after the 1950s. Because of the high population of Asians and Asian Americans living in this area of Boston, there is an abundance of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants located in Chinatown. It is one of the most densely populated residential areas in Boston and serves as the largest center of its East Asian and Southeast Asian cultural life. Chinatown borders the Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, the Washington Street Theatre District, Bay Village, the South End, and the Southeast Expressway/Massachusetts Turnpike. Boston's Chinatown is one of the largest Chinatowns outside of New York City.

Affordable housing Housing affordable to those with a median household income

Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership.

Community economic development (CED) is a field of study that actively elicits community involvement when working with government, and private sectors to build strong communities, industries, and markets.

Chinatown, Winnipeg Neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Chinatown is an neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that was formed in 1909 and serves as an enclave of Chinese expatriates.

Workforce housing is a term that is increasingly used by planners, government, and organizations concerned with housing policy or advocacy. It is gaining cachet with realtors, developers and lenders. Workforce housing can refer to any form of housing, including ownership of single or multi-family homes, as well as occupation of rental units. Workforce housing is generally understood to mean affordable housing for households with earned income that is insufficient to secure quality housing in reasonable proximity to the workplace.

Mel King

Melvin H. King is an American politician, community organizer, writer, and past adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The Venice Community Housing Corporation (VCHC) was formed in 1988 by a group of grassroots activists who were interested in preserving affordable housing in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Since that time, VCHC has grown to a comprehensive community development corporation with family support programs, gang prevention programs, job training and affordable housing.

Subsidized housing in the United States Administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households

Subsidized housing in the United States is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were 1.0 million public housing units.

Gentrification is the targeting of a neighborhood as new, and typically more affluent, people move in. It is often criticized because the current residents have limited options to buy or rent equivalent housing in alternative areas at the same price. If they stay, prices for products, services, and taxes rise and existing social networks are disturbed. Gentrification is the opposite of white flight—when residents voluntarily move away as a neighborhood declines.

Action for Boston Community Development

Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) is an anti-poverty, community development and human services organization founded in 1961 as Boston Community Development Program (BCDP) in Boston, Massachusetts and incorporated as Action for Boston Community Development in 1962, serving as a prototype for urban “human renewal” agencies.

Wilderness Inner-City Leadership Development

Wilderness Inner-City Leadership Development (WILD) is located in the center of Seattle Chinatown/International District (CID). This non-profit youth program was found in 1997 by Stella Chao, who was a former executive director for International District Housing Alliance (IDHA). Stella Chao is currently the Director for Department of Neighborhoods in the city of Seattle. WILD is a youth program that's open to immigrants who are in high school to develop their leadership skills. Every fall, they have a fall program open to students in Seattle Public Schools from age 13-19 to work on projects to make CID a better community. Some youths participate in the Intergenerational Program where they can develop communication skills cross generations in the Asian Pacific Islander community.

Non-profit housing developers build affordable housing for individuals under-served by the private market. The non-profit housing sector is composed of community development corporations (CDC) and national and regional non-profit housing organizations whose mission is to provide for the needy, the elderly, working households, and others that the private housing market does not adequately serve. Of the total 4.6 million units in the social housing sector, non-profit developers have produced approximately 1.547 million units, or roughly one-third of the total stock. Since non-profit developers seldom have the financial resources or access to capital that for-profit entities do, they often use multiple layers of financing, usually from a variety of sources for both development and operation of these affordable housing units.

Founded in 1967, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) is a community development corporation whose goal is to make sure the residents of Villa Victoria in South End, Boston keep long term control over their housing and neighborhood. They offer many programs for community development and organization, such as art, culture, and human services for the neighborhood. They hope to empower the growing Latino community in Boston's South End, most notably the Villa Victoria section.

The Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) is an American non-governmental organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1977. The CPA is an agency that helps Chinese immigrants assimilate into American culture through citizen classes, English classes, and involvement in local activism. The organization has engaged in political action as the motive force behind Boston's Unemployed Workers Rights Campaign (UWRC) during the decade of the 1980s. Members have also protested for affordable housing in Boston's Chinatown following mass construction of luxury condos. Additionally, in 2014, the CPA has created partnerships with Boston supermarkets in order to bring job opportunities for Asian immigrants into Boston.

The Thai Community Development Center is a nonprofit NGO in Los Angeles, California that assists Thai and other immigrants.

Chinese Americans in Boston

The Boston metropolitan area has an active Chinese American community. As of 2013, the Boston Chinatown was the third largest Chinatown in the United States, and there are also Chinese populations in the suburbs of Greater Boston, including Quincy, Malden, Acton, Newton, and Lexington. As of 2006, Boston, Quincy, Malden, Newton, Brookline, and Cambridge house about half of all of the ethnic Chinese in Massachusetts, and as a whole, Chinese constituted the largest Asian ethnic group in the state.

References

  1. "The Official Website of the Attorney General of Massachusetts". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Archived from the original on 2013-04-21. Retrieved 2013-01-20.
  2. Carpenter, Kane (November 18, 2011). "New Affordable Housing Opens in Quincy Center". Sampan. Sampan.org.
  3. Asian Community Development Corporation 2011 Annual Report
  4. Li, David (December 9, 2012). "Joe Kriesberg Gave Talk on Community Development at 2012 ACDC Annual Meeting". Bostonese.com English-Chinese Bilingual Online Journal. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  5. "2011 Annual Report" . Retrieved 2013-01-20.
  6. "Asian Community Development Corporation 2010 Annual Report". Asian Community Development Corporation. Retrieved 2013-01-21.