JOSEPH A. KRIESBERG
‘Critical’ time

For Diana Quinones, it’s not easy to forget the days when she worked two jobs to pay the rent at a Lowell apartment that had many sanitary code violations.

In the early 1980s, Quinones joined the Coalition for a Better Acre in Lowell as an intern to get involved with her community. Throughout the years, the community development corporation has mobilized local residents to save hundreds of affordable housing units from being demolished and worked to create more housing. The group even established the Care Family Day Care Corp. to help families develop day care services at home.

“I am working for change through my CDC,” said Quinones. “Join me.”

That was the mantra repeated by at least six other speakers at the first-ever convention of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, an organization representing 68 local nonprofit development groups across the state. Speaking in Spanish, Quinones was one of dozens of participants at the recent convention, which was highlighted by youth performances and presentations by local CDC members who shared their success stories. The convention also gave MACDC leaders a chance to unveil their goals for the next two years.

The MACDC is seeking to create 3,000 affordable homes, establish and preserve 5,000 jobs, help 1,500 businesses expand by offering technical and financial support and assist 18,000 families with job training and housing. To do all that by 2004, the association is hoping to attract $400 million in investment from state and local governments as well as the private sector.

Faced with tight budgets and numerous cutbacks, those are ambitious goals for challenging times, acknowledged some leaders. This year, the MACDC’s primary funding program – the Community Economic Enterprise Development, or CEED, program – was slashed from $1.9 million to $500,000.

Yet according to Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, the state’s CDCs have managed to pull through difficult fiscal times before.

“These are very resilient organizations,” said Grogan, who authored a book about CDCs.

Calling CDCs “a vital cog in the overall effort to create affordable housing,” Grogan said the MACDC goals aren’t “pie in the sky.” But accomplishing them will require the full cooperation and support of state and local governments and the private sector, he said.

Thomas Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, said the goals are realistic.

Many other states would “die” for the number of strong CDCs that Massachusetts has, he said. Nationally, there are more than 3,600 CDCs. The CDCs in this state have the capacity to build, but it’s not always easy to get them the resources they need, Callahan explained.

“For a long time, they’ve [CDCs] been the primary producer of affordable housing in this state,” said Callahan, who attended the convention.

‘Economic Limitations’

Since the first CDC in Massachusetts was created over 30 years ago, the organizations have created and improved almost 20,000 housing units and developed almost 2 million square feet of commercial space, said Richard Thal, executive director of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp. They’ve also taken on difficult projects in blighted neighborhoods to which for-profit developers have often turned their backs. Much of that development has occurred in Eastern Massachusetts.

“If it wasn’t for CDCs we wouldn’t have any rental housing in Boston,” said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who spoke at the convention.

In his speech, Menino took a swipe at the City Council for recently rejecting his rent “stabilization” plan, saying it’s time for councilors to hold their “feet to the fire” to come up with a solution. Menino said CDC members should tell councilors how many people need affordable housing, and he vowed to reintroduce another rent stabilization plan in January when two new councilors are installed.

He also urged participants not to give up but to make sure that Republican leaders, like Governor-elect Mitt Romney, are aware of the affordable housing issues. Romney was invited to the convention but did not attend.

The convention was held four days after the National Housing Conference, a public policy and housing advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., released a new study showing that in two years there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of families that spend more than half their income on housing. Roughly 3.08 million families spent more than 50 percent of their income for housing in 1999. By 2001, that number had grown to almost 4.02 million, according to the NHC study.

The MACDC event featured CDC leaders who talked about their future goals. The gathering was a “coming out” of sorts for the MACDC. The accomplishments of local CDCs are well known in various Bay State communities, but by having the convention, the MACDC wanted to show that collectively they are a force in the state overall.

In fact, during much of the convention, CDC leaders talked about how they turned around their communities by building and saving affordable housing, creating jobs and assisting start-up businesses.

Alden Booth, a member of the Franklin County CDC, spoke about how he received a start-up loan from the organization to start The People’s Pint, a pub and brewery in downtown Greenfield. Booth said his business follows an aggressive recycling program, composts kitchen scraps and buys produce and other goods from about 50 local farmers and suppliers.

Another speaker, Jeffrey Wong, said he joined the Asian CDC more than a decade ago to help his fellow immigrants in Chinatown.

“Many Chinese immigrants come to the United States and need affordable housing until they are able to learn the language and culture here,” said Wong.

Toward the end of the convention, a member from each of the state’s 68 CDCs lined up to share one goal set by that group.

MACDC President Joseph A. Kriesberg said he spent the last five months traveling throughout the state to meet with local CDC members and talk about their future plans. It was through those travels that the MACDC was able to formulate its goals.

But Kriesberg said the association is facing a “critical” time and must come up with a strategy to establish and meet goals.

“During a time of economic limitations, we need to be smart, strategic and targeted,” he said.