Community and Economic Development

Demolition Day Kicking off Carpenter's Square Development Project in East Camden

An Overview

Community and Economic development is no simple task.  At its core is the one of the most basic and foundational questions CCOP faces in its work, what is "community"?  Your answer to this question will determine what you spend your time and energy developing. 

Depending on your point of view community could be the buildings and structures that fill the streets, it could be the businesses, jobs, and projects that keep the city alive, it could also mean the people in the homes, offices, and churches.   

CCOP answers this question with relationships.  Real community and economic development occurs when the very fabric that makes community is rebuilt, that being relationships.   Relationship between neighbors, between churches, between officials and the public, between the police and the community, between policies and the people they affect, between teachers and parents, between parents and children, between you and your doctor, and all the other relationships that embody community.

Specific Project Underway

• St. Bartholomew's LOC: February 27, 2009, the LOC held a public meeting with their Councilperson Dana Burley.  Following the meeting leaders signed petitions, conducted one to one's, wrote a series of letters to the Chief Operating Officer Judge Davis, Camden Redevelopmen Agency Director Sandra Johnson, City Council, Parks and Recreation, Department of Health and Human Servies, and Public Works.  July 3rd, leaders just learned that the City has found extra grant money, a location, and the willingness to build Bergen Square's first park.
• CCOP Citywide: After three LOC's started working on issues that related to abandoned properties in Camden, several leaders reached out to Liza Nolan of the CCDA (Camden Community Development Association).  She shared with us that a new team of stakeholders were coming together called SNAAP (Stabilizing Neighborhoods by Addressing Abandoned Properties). 
• St. Joseph's Pro-Cathedral LOC: Having now been under State control for 7 years, leaders are wanting to test how the community feels about the direction of the recovery.  Currently leaders are surveying residents and plan to present the findings as a report card at several candidates forums this September. 
• St. Anthony of Padua LOC: Early July two more abandoned structures caught fire adding to a number of abandoned properties that stand as burnt structures.  Leaders are exploring ways to raise awarness of these properties as well as link the city to efforts being made my the community to find solutions.