JPNDC Vision for a More Equitable City Includes Affordable Housing, Prosperity Services and More
By John Fitzgerald and Bashier Kayou | Jamaica Plain News, June 11, 2019
Jamaica Plain, where you’re lucky to get a two-bedroom apartment for under $2,500, was once a neighborhood where homes were burned for insurance money. It was a neighborhood our state was ready to sacrifice for a highway.
So when JPNDC (Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation) was founded in 1977, our priorities were bringing back jobs, turning burned-out lots into homes, and making the neighborhood livable again.
Today, we face record wealth and income gaps, dramatically reduced economic mobility, and unaffordable housing. As across the country, lower-income people are on a treadmill, getting by at best rather than building security for their children.
With these threats in mind, JPNDC is completing a strategic plan for the next five years. Here are our principal strategies:
Embrace a citywide role. Most of the 500 families JPNDC serves each year with small business, early education or financial prosperity services live in other neighborhoods—often after having been displaced from JP. And the severity of the housing crisis means our search for new affordable housing opportunities can’t stop at the border. We recently saved 150 affordable homes in Roxbury and Dorchester, for example, from conversion to market-rate.
Aggressively pursue opportunities to keep JP inclusive. Just last month, as an example, JPNDC signed a Purchase & Sale agreement to acquire 3371 Washington Street— home to two businesses (El Embajador and DeChain Auto) and at very high risk of becoming yet another market-rate development. We hope to close this month and begin a community process to shape its redevelopment as 100 percent affordable housing and commercial space. JPNDC has been working with both businesses since they were first threatened with displacement, and is committed to doing so through the transition.
Do more to help low-income people beat the odds and enjoy long-term security. Right here at The Brewery Small Business Complex, we’ll create a Prosperity Center that will allow us to work with as many as 700 families a year to build credit, assets, and successful businesses.
Organize, organize, organize. From supporting public housing tenants to coalition work for immigrants’ rights and economic justice, JPNDC puts leadership development and advocacy front and center.
Focus on racial equity. Wealth inequality in Boston is essentially a racial gap. JPNDC is connecting its real estate networks and small business expertise to help connect contractors of color to the wealth generated by the building boom. We want to make this pilot project a model for others to follow.
We invite all to learn more and be part of the work to build a more equitable Boston!
John Fitzgerald and Bashier Kayou are co-chairs of the JPNDC Board of Directors.
Highlights
Advance the most ambitious housing development pipeline in our history, developing 600 affordable homes that allow low-income people to thrive in Boston.
Redevelop 4,000 square feet of The Brewery as a Prosperity Center, where 700 low-income families a year from all over Boston can overcome the odds and build long-term financial security.
Expand our Family Childcare Program to include 60 home-based professional educators who help get 750 low-income children on track for success in school.
As part of Small Business Services, build JPNDC’s innovative Small Contractors Project and connect small construction businesses owned by people of color or women to new contracts worth at least $15 million.
Continue our partnership with residents of Mildred Hailey Apartments, supporting leaders and ensuring that future redevelopment meets the needs of local low-income families.
Build a strong leadership pipeline for JPNDC’s board and staff, with emphasis on young leaders and people of color who reflect our constituency.
Our Mission
Our mission is to transform the lives and amplify the voices of Boston residents who have been excluded from prosperity by an inequitable economic system. We develop affordable housing that allows people to thrive, provide services that help people build on their strengths, and organize people to pursue the changes they desire.
Our Vision
With our roots in Jamaica Plain, we envision an equitable and inclusive Boston in which all people have access to secure housing, economic prosperity, safe and vibrant neighborhoods, political power, and opportunities to fulfill their potential.