Adelaida was here from the beginning. 

Long before she needed anything from JPNDC, she was organizing with us. Alongside Ramona Gonzalez, Doña Betsaida Gutierrez, Nate Smith, and other JP neighbors, Adelaida knocked on doors, handed out flyers, and invited people to meetings. “We went house to house,” she says. “That’s how you build something real.”  

She watched JPNDC grow over more than 30 years and shakes her head at how far it has come. 

Adelaida was teaching at the James W. Hennigan School and starting to think about retirement when her husband passed away. Suddenly, everything felt uncertain. She worried about staying afloat and keeping the home they had owned together.  

Never one to sit still, Adelaida started thinking about what came next. Meanwhile, JPNDC had just begun offering classes for people interested in opening home-based childcare programs.  

“I said, let me take daycare classes,” Adelaida recalls with a laugh. She got licensed through JPNDC and prepared her basement with cribs, toys, and books. She passed the inspection and had everything ready to go. Then, a new opportunity arose. 

JPNDC was building the Nate Smith House on Lamartine and Paul Gore Streets. After years of tenant and community organizing – some of it by Adelaida and her fellow activists – the site had finally been wrested from a notorious slumlord. JPNDC purchased it from bankruptcy court and a community process led to the vision of affordable senior housing.  

Adelaida filled out an application for one of the 45 units and was accepted. “I felt like I won the lottery,” she says. Her kids worried because she had never lived alone, but Adelaida was ready. Nearly twenty-eight years later, she still says she has loved every second. 

“We’re a real family here,” Adelaida says proudly. She has been President of the Residents Committee since the Nate Smith House opened and has no plans of slowing down. Residents plan parties, raise money, do Zumba, play bingo, and keep an eye on one another. “If an ambulance comes for someone, we all know what’s going on,” she says. During COVID, when Adelaida was sick and her family could not visit, neighbors called her and left things at her door. No one was ever alone. 

At 92, Adelaida now counts on her granddaughter – “my biggest advocate” – to drive her around, take her to appointments, and make sure she’s living well. Adelaida has her own advice for a long life. “Don’t be lazy,” she says. “The TV will kill your brain.” 

“I’m very grateful to be here,” Adelaida says. For her, the Nate Smith House is not just housing. It’s a home built on community, history, and a lot of heart. 

Learn more about JPNDC Affordable Housing here!