Ron's House Demo

Back in 2007 when Joshua first started working in Camden, New Jersey for CCOP, he initiated a "quick win" project with Father Jud and members of the St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church (where Alma was baptized) and School to take down a dilapidated and abandoned house that was being used for all sorts of crimes (remember the drug bags?) and was located just feet from the school.

Well, finally -- because this is how slow progress can be in a city like Camden -- the church and community had a major win this week with the demolition of the house!!!!  How exciting!

Just take a look at how bad the house was when Joshua started working on this project. Amazing!

Congratulations to Father Jud, the St Anthony Local Organizing Committee, Kate Goodman and the rest of the CCOP staff!!!

Camden Aquarium

The day before Alma's birthday we went to the Camden Aquarium with our best mama friends.  Seeing these great women and their kiddos is one of my favorite things to do!  I'm so blessed to have them in my life.    Plus, we saw a scubba diving Santa which was so neat!  Watch out, Santa, there's a shark!!

Work

Alma and I have recently been going over to Camden for CCOP's Thursday night lecture series.  It is a great way for me to keep my brain active, let Alma see her daddy in a new space and give the CCOP family some time with our cutie. 

Unfortunately, Alma's social anxiety has started to ramp up a bit these day.  Here she is looking a little scared with Mariatu, one of CCOP's leaders.

Article in Inquirer about CCOP's Efforts

Mayor Redd: Tear Down These Walls
By Kevin Riordan
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist

Best part of the article:
Camden mayors are traditionally wary of CCOP, particularly because of its independence and media savvy. That has been the pattern for more than 20 years. It's time for Redd to break that mold.

Brother Jerry's Garden

The community garden that St. Anthony's of Padua -- as part of an effort by Joshua and CCOP -- created last year is still thriving.  We recently planted our own plot with tomatos, peppers, spices and other vegetables.

CCOP Sad News

It is with a heavy heart that I write this. Yesterday afternoon Br. Jerry Hudson, O.F.M, Franciscan Brother at St. Anthony of Padua in Cramer Hill went home to God.

The entire St. Anthony community, Br. Jerry’s family, and friends, are asking all of you to keep them in your prayers during this most challenging of times.

For those of you who had the blessing to know or work with Br. Jerry, you knew how his tough exterior and sarcastic nature where just a shell that housed one of the most loving and wonderful hearts that you could ever get to know. And yes, he would hit me for saying this.

Brother Jerry’s smile glowed…that is if you could get him to smile, but on those “rare” occasions you would see his entire face light up, revealing that big ol' heart inside. The best example of this is when Laura and I introduced him to Alma. When told Alma was in the room, he stopped in the middle of his sentence, turned away from us and scurried over to Alma. At this point his face was just one big smile, his eyes lit up, and he and Alma just cooed together for several minutes.

Over the past 3 years I had the opportunity to work closely with Br. Jerry and had seen that he lived and breathed his ministry and serving God’s people. He was a man of few words but his words spoke truth, justice, and love. He loved Camden and for the years he was here he worked hard to make it a brighter and happier place.

CCOP, our family and all of Camden will miss him.

--Joshua

(photo: Joshua and Brother Jerry clearing out growth in the backyard of "Ron's House" in September 2007)

'Ugliest House' Razed in Camden

By DEBORAH HIRSCH • Courier-Post • January 14, 2010

CAMDEN — The worst of the worst eyesores in Cramer Hill was demolished Wednesday -- four and a half months after residents voted it the ugliest house in the neighborhood.

About 20 community members, church leaders and students from St. Anthony of Padua parish school braved the frigid morning to watch a demolition crew topple the burned-out shell of 923 N. 27th St. and an adjacent row home.

The two buildings were the first of 23 hazardous structures that are expected to come down over the next few weeks.

Leaders from Camden Churches Organized for People organized the ugly house contest last July in an effort to draw attention to the thousands of abandoned homes in the city.

[For the complete article, please see The Courier Post.]

Camden's Ugliest House Lives On and On

By Matt Katz
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Camden's ugliest abandoned house is still there, as ugly as ever.

Four months after a high-profile protest and promises by politicians to have it razed, the building on North 27th Street - winner of an "ugliest house" contest by a community group - is a reminder of the difficulty of progress in the nation's poorest city.

"Thinking about Camden's capacity to govern itself, this is a perfect example of how the capacity is still not there," concluded Brother Jerry Hudson of Camden Churches Organized for People, which organized the competition.

(For the full article, please visit the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

CCOP in The Economist

Camden's crisis

Ungovernable?
Nov 26th 2009 | CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY
From The Economist print edition

The state may have failed the city it took over

ROSA RAMIREZ is an active member of Camden Churches Organised for People (CCOP), a large and powerful civic group in Camden, New Jersey. She complains that rubbish is not collected. She worries about drug dealers hanging out on street corners and in the city’s many abandoned buildings. But when her daughter, who lives in the suburbs, begs her to leave, Ms Ramirez replies, “How can I leave? Camden needs me.” It does. Not enough people care about this city of 79,000 people that lies in the shadow of Philadelphia.

Hopes rose seven years ago, when the state took over the post-industrial city. The inept municipal government was struggling to provide even the most basic service. Poor management and lack of resources meant possibly waiting hours for police to respond to calls. Corruption was rampant: three former mayors ended up in jail. Camden was given $175m in bonds and loans and in return the state was given municipal authority over the city. The governor appointed a chief operating officer who could veto decisions made by the mayor and the city council. The state also took over the abysmal school district and, in 2005, the police department. Much of the money went to big urban development projects. The waterfront, with its fantastic views of the Philadelphia skyline, was given particular attention. Hospitals and universities in the area received money to expand and more than $1 billion was leveraged in private investments.

But the city’s districts, many blighted with abandoned buildings, did not get much cash. In the Cramer Hill district Brother Jerry Hudson of the St Anthony of Padua church talks about the run-down place next door to the parish school. Although the city had boarded it up, vandals routinely broke in. It became a den for drugs and prostitution. Though many such buildings have been demolished, Brother Jerry reckons there are just as many now as there were in 2002.

Camden had the highest crime rate in the country in 2008, according to CQ Press, with 2,333 violent crimes for every 100,000 people. The national average is 455. Camden spends $17,000 per child on education, yet only two thirds complete school. Two out of five people live below the poverty line. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently summed up a series on Camden by saying that “residents are just as poor today and just as likely to be murdered. They are just as unemployed…And the city is twice as reliant on state taxpayers as before.”

Little wonder then, that Chris Christie, the governor-elect of New Jersey, has called the state takeover a “failed experiment”. He hopes to return control to the city, perhaps even before the takeover expires in 2012. But not everyone feels the city is ready. One former chief operating officer predicted it would stay under state control until 2030. As there is no tax base to support city services, Camden would still have to depend on the state for funding. But New Jersey is struggling to balance its own books, and it is not alone: less state support can be expected all over the country, just when cities most need help. The National League of Cities has found that 88% of city finance officers are less able to meet fiscal needs this year.

But there is some good news. Crime is down 13% this year so far. Murders have fallen by 38%, while shootings are down 18%. Big construction projects at Rutgers University and Cooper University Hospital are under way. Tom Corcoran, the former head of the Cooper Ferry Development Association, thinks that if the city can lower crime and improve schools, it can turn around. He thinks the waterfront is key: the city has 15 miles of it, though only 10% is accessible to the public.

Ms Ramirez is typical. She thinks the state is doing a bad job, but she also worries that the city will fall apart without it. “It’s in Christie’s hands,” she says. “If he can figure it out, he would be a hero.”

Christie blasts city schools

By JIM WALSH • Courier-Post Staff • October 13, 2009

CAMDEN — Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie on Monday night blasted the city's school system as "obscene" and said its failed classrooms are to blame for Camden's dangerous streets.

In a speech here, Christie aimed much of his criticism at his Democratic opponent, saying the administration of Gov. Jon S. Corzine has taken "deep bows" for "half measures" in the impoverished city.

But Christie also targeted teachers unions for city school failures, saying their leaders "are feeling fat and they don't want change."

Christie said he'd improve education opportunities for city youth by offering more charter schools, introducing vouchers that would cover tuition payments at private schools and through unspecified "innovations."

"The failing schools must change or they must go extinct because we can't continue to fail your children," he said a meeting sponsored by the nonpartisan Camden Churches Organized for People. About 100 people turned out for the session at Sword of the Spirit Church.

(For the complete article, please see the Courier Post.)

U.S. block grant to take down Camden's most dilapidated

By Matthew Spolar, Inquirer Staff Writer

In August, an abandoned, crumbling home at 923 N. 27th St. was named the ugliest house in Camden's Cramer Hill neighborhood.

Now, thanks to a federal grant, its days are numbered.

The building took the crown in a contest that Camden Churches Organized for People conducted to bring urgency and publicity to the problem of abandoned houses. It was chosen from among 13 candidates by parishioners at participating churches.

The organization demanded it be torn down within 48 hours. At the time, Pat Keating, Camden's public works director, said a recent major demolition had left him with too little money to make that happen.

Late last month, however, $500,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funding was approved for demolitions in the city.

"That's the money I've been waiting for," Keating said.

He will use it to demolish 33 houses on the city's "imminent hazard" list: 12 throughout Cramer Hill and East and North Camden, 12 in South Camden, and 9 downtown.

On the list is 923 N. 27th St. and its decrepit next-door neighbor at 925.

"They're going to be in that first batch," Keating said.

The list is set for bidding by demolition contractors. The contracts would then require City Council approval.

"If that comes down, it'll be a big relief for all of us," said the Father William "Jud" Weiksnar, the pastor at St. Anthony of Padua Church, who spearheaded the contest won by 923.

But the contest should not end efforts to rid Camden of abandoned properties, he said.

"The reason for the ugly-house contest was to draw attention to a situation most people [in Camden] had become used to - living with dangerous or abandoned houses right next door," he said.

...

Keating said the building at 923 N. 27th St. would likely have been on the list of 33 even without the attention brought to it by the contest, but he still applauded the efforts of Camden Churches Organized for People.

"God bless them. I love that stuff," he said. "That's how you keep people engaged. You need these folks to do what they do."

(For the full article about this CCOP victory, please visit the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

CCOP Mayoral Forum

Last night's mayoral forum went well. Even though a big storm blew through the area right before the event, at least 200 people showed up to hear the four mayoral candidates answer questions from the CCOP community.

Above is a photo of Rev. Anderson, the evenings moderator; below are the time keepers who ensured that candidate answers were not too long.

Camden candidates outline mayoral goals -- Courier Post article

Camden mayor candidates urge freedom from state rule -- Philadelphia Inquirer article

Corzine hears pleas to boost aid for Camden

September 16, 2009    Philadelphia Inquirer    by Matt Katz

Gov. Corzine sat with his hands clasped last night as a Camden minister asked hundreds of city residents to stand if their homes or churches were next to abandoned buildings.

Most of the crowd at St. Joseph's Pro Cathedral on Federal Street rose to their feet.

Then the Rev. Willie Anderson asked whether anyone had heard gunshots at night, and nearly everyone else stood up.

By the time Anderson had finished listing his concerns - broken infrastructure, dirty streets, inattentive officials, and poor education - all the residents were standing, clapping, or raising their hands to the ceiling.

The city's largest civic organization, Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP), last night made its third major public plea in a decade to try to exact more state assistance for Camden from a governor seven weeks from a tough reelection battle.

(For the full article, check out the Philadelphia Inquirer)

Community Garden Update

In May of this year, we wrote on this blog about the community garden which was being planted in the Camden lot across from St. Anthony of Padua Church and School that used to be an abandoned police substation. Well, we thought we should update you on that project with some photos.

The lot went from this:
To this:
To this beautiful garden that is feeding the community:

Police to address fears

By Deborah Hirsch • Courier-Post Staff • August 31, 2009

CAMDEN — Seeking to improve the relationship between law enforcement and the immigrant community, Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson and Camden Churches Organized for People will meet tonight to talk about crime prevention and victims' rights.

City and Latino community leaders say that illegal immigrants often do not report criminal activity or unfit housing conditions for fear that they will be reported to immigration enforcement officials. As a result, criminals and landlords have learned to take advantage of them.

(For the complete article, please see the Courier Post.)

'Ugliest house' still stands tall

Courier Post by Deborah Hirsch

CAMDEN — Cramer Hill resident Zoraida Gonzalez-Torres can't remember the last time someone lived in the burned-out rowhouse at 923 N. 27th St., just a few blocks from her home.

She guessed the two-story building has been vacant for at least 12 years. Last October, the city designated it an imminent hazard that should be demolished within 48 hours.

However, what's left of the home still stands today -- one of thousands of abandoned shells marring the city.

To Cramer Hill residents, this particular house is the worst of the worst eyesores in their neighborhood.

Thursday, Gonzalez-Torres and about 50 other residents crowned it the winner of an "Ugly Home" contest at a tongue-in-cheek ceremony they hope will spur real action. They shook tambourines, banged hand drums and waved cardboard cut-outs of bulldozers as community leaders covered part of the red siding with a banner proclaiming "Cramer Hill's Ugliest House of 2009."

"This could collapse any minute and affect anybody walking down the sidewalk," Gonzalez-Torres said. "This is not normal in any other community. Why is it normal in Camden? We need to make sure that something gets done."

Leaders from St. Anthony of Padua Parish and Camden Churches Organized for People started the ugly home contest last month to call attention to the problem. They photographed 13 of the neighborhood's nearly 200 abandoned buildings and distributed ballots to local churches and the Cramer Hill Community Development Corporation.

More than 300 votes were cast, about 30 percent of which put 923 N. 27th St. at the top of the list, said Father Jud Weiksnar of St. Anthony.

(For the complete article, please see the Courier Post.)

Ugliest House in Camden: The Winner is Revealed!

Today Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP), along with St. Anthony of Padua Church, celebrated the unveiling of the Ugliest House in Camden. A group of 65+ community members marched from the church to the house shown below, which has been vacant, abandoned and burned-out for at least twelve years. Individuals carried signs with bulldozers to show their feelings about what the city should do to the winner. Unfortunately, Camden is full of houses just like this one.After the big reveal of the competition's winner, the members of the community demolished this tasty cake!

Program to fix up homes in last phase

By Deborah Hirsh • Courier-Post Staff • May 16, 2009

State, local and church officials Friday announced the third and final phase of a program that grants forgivable loans to Camden residents looking to fix up their places.

The Camden Home Improvement Program, also known as CHIP, offers eligible homeowners up to $20,000 in loans to fix their homes. Priority is given to repairs that affect the safety of residents, such as rewiring a faulty electrical system. However, grants can also be awarded for fixing basic systems, preventing deterioration and enhancing the exterior facade. If the homeowners stay in their home for five years, the entire loan is forgiven. They can sell the home before that, but must repay all or part of the loan depending on how many years they stay.

The idea originated from Camden Churches Organized for People and Concerned Black Clergy, who said the state's $175 million economic recovery plan had not done enough to improve the city's neighborhoods.

Since the program first launched in December 2006, more than 130 homes have been rehabilitated and dozens more are in progress.

An additional 83 are expected to be rehabbed in this final phase. Homeowners in Fairview, Morgan Village, Parkside, Lanning Square, Central Waterfront, Cooper Grant and downtown will now be eligible to apply.

State agencies anticipate eventually giving out $8 million to up to 300 homeowners across the city. Of that money, $5 million comes from the Camden Economic Recovery Board, $2.5 million from the Department of Community Affairs and $500,000 from the city of Camden.
Gloucester City contractor Munawar Bashir, 44, said the program has not only helped homeowners but also kept him and other local businesses afloat.

Bashir said it wasn't long after he and his brother started their company in 2005 that projects began to slow down. Sometimes, he said, people would hire them and then they didn't have the money to pay for the job.

"It's cold winter and no jobs, I'm just crazy running around," he remembered. "I lost everything, house and car."

He heard about the CHIP program in 2007 and applied to be one of their designated contractors. If not for those projects, he said, "I would have lost everything."

On Friday, he and two employees put siding on an East Camden home, one of about 35 grant projects they've worked on so far. Bashir estimated that 90 percent of their jobs come from CHIP.

If there were enough money to meet the high demand for the grants, contractors would have even more projects. Aida Figueroa, who manages the project through Cooper's Ferry, said she has a wait list of more than 250 people who applied for the second phase of the program but weren't able to get funding.

Church leaders said they hope to find a way to continue the program because helping residents improve their homes can trigger a domino effect throughout the neighborhood, increasing depressed property values.

"That one that stands out has encouraged some of the other people on the block to fix up their houses, too, at least on the outside," said the Rev. Willie Anderson, of the Gateway neighborhood.

The program "definitely needs to be done again," he said. "We've got a lot of working poor that's doing all they can just to stay in their homes and pay their taxes. They just don't have the money for a new roof or a heating system."

Community Garden (a.k.a. What Joshua Does with His Days)

Vacant city lots transform into family-tended gardens
By Lavinia DeCastro • Courier-Post Staff • May 10, 2009

Less than a year ago, 9-year-old Alex Checo came home from a school field trip clutching a small tomato plant. "He was so excited," said his mother Martha Checo. "He said "Mom, let's go. We have to plant it.'" Checo didn't share her son's excitement. "At my house, we don't have the space to grow a garden," she said.

She did it anyway, setting the plant down in the small patch of dirt at their Cramer Hill home.
"We had so many tomatoes, if you came in and took a couple, we wouldn't even notice," said Alex, a student at the St. Anthony of Padua School.

Although the family's garden is still small, they now have room to grow as many vegetables as they would like. The Checos were among the first families to sign up for their own plot at a new community garden in a city-owned lot on the corner of 29th Street and River Road, across from Von Neida Park. "We're going to have more throughout the city," said City Council President Angel Fuentes during Saturday's groundbreaking ceremony. "This is just the beginning."

The garden, one of about 20 sprinkled throughout the city, is the result of a partnership between the city, a group of local churches and the Camden Children's Garden. About half of the community gardens in Camden are on city-owned properties, said Children's Garden Director Mike Devlin. The other half belongs to faith-based organizations, he said.

"This is a good partnership with the churches," Fuentes said. "Imagine if each church could select an empty lot near them and beautify it. I think it would make a huge difference in the city."

The lot in Cramer Hill is among the 5,000 to 10,000 abandoned properties in Camden.
For the past five years, the lot was a neighborhood blight. Trailers that served as a police substation from 1994 to 2002 still sat there, abandoned. "We put up the trailers and within a couple of days, folks came here and firebombed it," Fuentes said, blaming the damage on drug dealers who sold their wares on the corner of 28th and Heyes streets. When the city restructured its police department the trailers were no longer needed.

Tired of seeing the abandoned structures, four Cramer Hill churches belonging to a group called Camden Churches Organized for People decided to do something about it.

"We got together with the Children's Garden and asked: "What can we do with this site?' " said Mandi Aviles, director of youth ministries at St. Anthony. With the help of a group from Volunteers of America, the staff at the Children's Garden prepared the first nine plots to be planted then used part of a $250,000 Robert Wood Johnson grant to supply seeds and plants. Those who participate in the program have to sign an agreement with St. Anthony and the Cramer Hill community garden committee to take care of the land. "The first step is to get the gardens going," Devlin said.

On Saturday, volunteers were busy planting the more than 500 plants and seeds bought with grant money. With a little help getting started, neighbors usually stick with it, Devlin said.
"Gardening is popular in every culture," Devlin said. "It's as popular in Haddonfield as it is in Camden." And the demand is growing. There are more community gardens popping up this year than any other previous year, Devlin said. So many, in fact, that Camden County ran out of the wood chips it has provided free of change for many years. The wood chips are used to divide the plots. "We used them all up," Devlin said.

Membership in the Children's Garden club has climbed to include more than 70 families and 30 nonprofits. For their $25 to $60 annual dues, members have access to free plants, seeds, fertilizers, fencing and other planting materials. The National Gardening Association estimates that 9 million more households will be gardening this year, a 19 percent increase from last year.
For the residents planting the gardens, the benefits outweigh the amount of produce they can harvest.

"I think it's going to restore a lot of the hope that was lost here," Aviles said. "We see so much negative that we forget that there are things that we can do that are positive if we just get together and do them."

CCOP Breakfast Fundraiser

The Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) Annual Fundraiser Breakfast event went well! Located along the Camden waterfront at the aquarium, it was a great time to hear about the recent work of CCOP and get a sneak peek into future projects. Even though I hear about CCOP every night, during the year-end recap at the breakfast, I'm always blown away by the magnitude and scope of the work that is being accomplished by the Camden churches with the backing of CCOP. The list of recent "wins" is always so impressive. I couldn't be more proud of the work that Joshua is doing.

Here is the "team photo" of Joshua and his staff. What a great bunch. (l-r: Joshua, Kaitlyn, Jerri, Edward)
Here's to another year of great CCOP work!