Reviving Communities

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Study of St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society

In 1985, East Camden was a neighborhood filled with empty storefronts. One in every six homes was abandoned and a home sold for less than $18,000. Rolando Robinson remembers that East Camden. She had just had her first child. It was also the year that St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society, a local home restoration group, began revitalizing the East Camden community.

Much has changed in East Camden since then. St. Joe’s buoyed by the success of its first several homes, realized its appetite for development needed to be fueled by better technical assistance and financing. In 1991, TRF helped set St. Joe’s program in motion, providing the financing and assistance needed to access major public resources and do larger scale developments.

For Rolanda, who was earning $17,000 working two jobs and enrolled in nursing school, the possibility of owning her own home was growing. Determined to become part of a better East Camden, Rolanda enrolled in St. Joe’s homeowner education program, working on resolving any credit issues so that she could soon own a home in her community.

With St. Joe’s ongoing assistance, Rolanda became a homeowner on December 10, 2003. And with TRF’s ongoing support, St. Joe’s continued its penetration throughout East Camden. Together, TRF and St. Joes have been actively transforming and reclaiming the neighborhood.

Today, St. Joe’s has invested in 650 properties, one in every five homes in the area. The result of these investments -- total housing values in East Camden that have doubled to $100 million since 1999. A most pronounced example, 20 years after St. Joe’s began, its 650^th home sold for $120,000, far from the $18,000 of 1985. For Rolanda, who works as a registered nurse making $40,000 a year, it’s a dream come true, “A home we are proud of in a stable and healthy neighborhood for my family.”