what once stood as an abandoned lot in Camden is now being transformed into a group of affordable homes for Camden residents the project a collaboration between several groups in Camden will build nine new homes and renovate one house that will all be available for purchase for first-time homebuyers in Camden Raven Santana has more on the project as part of our ongoing Series Chasing the Dream focusing on poverty Justice and Economic Opportunity Empire Avenue in Camden was once an abandoned Lop but new construction is transforming parts of the city and so what you see behind me today is a represented representation of four homes as a part of a 10 new homes project with more development to come down the pike Bridget Pfeiffer is CEO of Parkside business and community in Partnership the non-profit Community Building initiative is deeply rooted in the vision of residents who fight for credits in their most recent affordable development the residents went through a very rigorous like two and a half actually four year two phased neighborhood planning process and at the core of that plan was this idea that we needed to create housing housing that is Affordable to all Pfeiffer says the three bedroom two bath homes with modern finishes will be sold for 129 thousand dollars once construction is completed staff says the goal is to encourage residents to own not rent get people to get some home ownership not rental home ownership own your house so you'll be able to take care of your house take care of your property and do these streets the way they used to do 50 years ago 60 years ago when neighbors took care of their block people like me who never understood that home ownership is attainable would not have been able to purchase so that is definitely critical and I'm so happy because so many of our neighbors our friends our families are in dire need to be able to buy something that you know will grow wealth for their family a number of funder who were at the event to celebrate the new affordable housing shared why Community Partnerships on projects like this will only continue to expand New Jersey American water has been serving Cramer Hill and East Camden since 1891 the fact that we provided the nrtc grant that helped to some degree to drive a program like this to be able to see our dollars go directly into the community and help is incredibly important to us because as a water utility we feel uniquely oriented to be part of a community we enter folks homes every day and we provide them with a life-sustaining utility so it's really important for us to to have those trusted Partnerships it's Unique this is different and um you know and I know that it's for first-time home buyer right and and uh so it's good and we want to let people know throughout the city that there's still hope you know we believe in affordable housing um you know we believe also in market rate housing but we have people who are in need a need that assemblyman William Spearman says will be met the budget this year and last year we've fully we've been putting money back into the Housing Trust Fund at DCA which provides the funding for subsidies for projects like this and that's something that the governor and the um and the legislature has been committed to because let's face it we have to rebuild our communities and rebuilding will continue as pbcip was recently approved for a final site plan for New Town Homes on Haddon Avenue that will be ready to be sold next march for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana major funding for Chasing the Dream is provided by the JPB foundation with additional funding from the Peter G Peterson and Joan Gantz Cooney fund [Music] [Music] [Music]