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 Interested
in the Future of the Community?
As
an active Community Development Corporation, we serve the Greater
Boston Asian American community through a variety of programs.
Through our Physical Development activities and our Community
Programs, we seek to preserve, revitalize, and build up the
physical, cultural, and economic capital in Chinatown, specifically,
as well as Greater Boston's Asian Community as a whole.
Current
Initiatives:
Smart
Growth Real Estate Development and Affordable Housing
Since its beginning, ACDC has pioneered
innovative models of affordable housing development. First with our
Oak Terrace apartments, which was among the earliest projects in the
country to utilize Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Then later with
our Parcel C development now completed and called The Metropolitan,
which MassHousing refers to as the most complex and sophisticated
affordable housing financing arrangement in Massachusetts. And most
recently with our two-year-long process to secure Parcel 24, one of
the Big Dig parcels, for a community-based, affordable housing
development. More info...
Comprehensive Home
Ownership Program (CHOP)
CDC's Comprehensive
Homeownership Program helps foster economic development, leadership, and
empowerment of community members through education and advocacy. When
ACDC began its work, the owner-occupancy in Chinatown, at merely 5%, was
the lowest in the city. Today, thanks to the recent completion of
our new development, The Metropolitan, that percentage has doubled to 10%,
but there is still much work to be done to improve access for new
immigrants and linguistic minorities. These community members face
considerable barriers in achieving literacy in US financial systems and
homeownership. Our Comprehensive Home Ownership Program (CHOP), through
targeted homeownership education seeks give the Chinatown community to
become homeowners. This program is especially important because no other
organization in the Boston area is providing these services to Chinese
speakers. More info...
A-VOYCE
(Asian Voices of Organized Youth for Community
Empowerment)
A-VOYCE (Asian Voices of Organized
Youth for Community Empowerment) is a youth development program of
the Asian Community Development Corporation that develops leadership
potential of Asian American youth from Greater Boston by bringing
their voices to the public to effect positive change in the
community through the Chinatown Youth Radio Project and Chinatown
Walking Tour Collective. CYRP produces a weekly live Asian American
youth public affairs and music radio show and CWTC leads Chinatown
community tours to give visitors new historical, cultural, and
personal interpretations of the neighborhood. A-VOYCE content is
researched and developed by youth after intensive training in their
field of choice. More info...
Chinatown Heritage Project
Working in coalition with
Asian American Bank, Chinese Historical Society of New England, and
Peabody Essex Museum,
ACDC recently helped to create the Chinatown Heritage Project, an
innovative series of programs which increase civic pride and
revitalize neighborhood businesses. By promoting the rich
history and culture of Chinatown the project will increase public
awareness of the neighborhood, leading to better protection of the
community. Components of the Chinatown
Heritage Project include the Chinatown Heritage Trail and A
Chinatown Banquet (see below), Chinatown Youth Radio Project,
Chinatown Walking Tour Collective, and the Storytelling Cafe. For
more information, contact Mary Fuller at
maryfuller@asiancdc.org or
617-482-2380 x207. Also visit
www.chinatownheritage.org
to learn more.
A
Chinatown Banquet
A Chinatown Banquet is a multimedia, digital art and community planning
project that includes urban history education, media production
training, and civic engagement and dialogue to produce three prominent
public expressions of the community. The Banquet is creating: eight
permanent LCD screens mounted along a new walking trail in Boston's
Chinatown that allow visitors to interact with an on-going multimedia
presentation about the neighborhood; a temporary exhibit at Dreams
of Freedom of the International Institute of Boston that will examine
and highlight the role of Chinese and Asian immigrants and Chinatown
in Massachusetts; and an internet presence at:
www.chinatownbanquet.org,
where distant visitors and neighborhood residents alike can explore,
in depth, the multiple facets that constitute the sense of place
of Chinatown. More info...
Speakeasy
In an effort to break down linguistic
and cultural barriers that hinder non-English speaking individuals –
particularly new immigrants – from gaining access to essential
social services and resources, ACDC and MIT’s Community Innovations
Lab have recently developed an innovative system called Speakeasy.
This integrated telephone and web service provides limited-English
proficiency individuals with on-demand language interpretation
services by connecting them to multilingual “Guides” who act as
“linguistic liaisons” to city service agencies, community
organizations and local businesses via cell phone. Speakeasy
allows Guides to provide assistance wherever they may be and
whenever they are available. ACDC is currently recruiting bilingual
individuals who are fluent in Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin,
Toisanese and/or another Chinese dialect) to serve as Guides
(volunteer interpreters) for a six-week pilot of Speakeasy.
To sign up or for more information, please contact Mary Fuller at
speakeasy@asiancdc.org
or 617-482-2380 x203.
More info...
Past Programs:
The
Berkeley Street Community Garden
The Berkeley Street Community Garden is the most visible and vibrant
ongoing expression of authentic Asian culture anywhere in the City
of Boston. Much more than any "gateway" or restaurant
could be, this garden and the Asian gardeners are a living expression
of an agricultural heritage that originated over 50 centuries ago
in China and continues today here in our city. The Berkeley Street
Community Garden (BSCG) is located in the South End immediately
adjacent to the Castle Square Apartments and located on East Berkeley
Street between Shawmut Avenue and Tremont Street. ACDC is particularly
interested in protecting the Garden for the elderly Asians who intensively
farm many of the garden plots. For these gardeners, spending time
in these garden plots is a vital element of their emotional and
physical well being and the food they grow contributes to their
and their families' nutritional security. More
info...
Young Leaders Network (YLN)
The Young Leaders Network (YLN) is a
youth driven initiative of the Asian Community Development
Corporation. Through the YLN, ACDC expect youth in the Chinatown
community to gain a better sense of their power as young people, and
give them an opportunity to make a change in their neighborhood.
The YLN seeks to provide an open forum for youth empowerment to
create change in the Asian American community of greater Boston and
to utilize the creativity and enthusiasm of young people to develop
leadership skills while at the same time providing a network for
social action and community development. The YLN is composed of
teenage youth either living in Chinatown or having strong
connections to the community. The YLN seeks a diverse base of
participants and is open to all youths interested in the development
of the Asian community. More info...
Community Planning Technology
ACDC received funding from the Boston Foundation to develop
powerful community planning technology by utilizing Geographic
Information System (GIS) applications. Through its ability to map,
catalogue and reconfigure highly specific sets of data, GIs
strengthens ACDC's ability to address complicated economic
development and physical planning issues related to the intense
building boom this community faces. Utilizing GIs as a community
planning tool will position us to become an important and unique
community resource. This project will establish a fully functioning
GIs capable of sharing information and facilitating and promoting
planning within the community. We are partnered with the Coalition
to Protect Chinatown not only to pursue joint data collection and
planning goals, but also to demonstrate a data delivery model and
the value of this technology for other community organizations,
especially those that focus on grass roots advocacy.
Medical Equipment Remanufacturing for Chinatown Urban Revitalization
The Medical Equipment Remanufacturing for Chinatown Urban
Revitalization (MERCURY) project seeks to take advantage of the
local hospital cluster and export markets in Asia, and to do so in a
way that creates significant local job and job training
opportunities. Project partners include Boston University, New
England Medical Center and Medical Academic and Scientific Community
Organization (MASCO).
Chinatown
Waste Reduction Initiative
The Chinatown Waste Reduction Initiative (CWRI) will adapt and demonstrate
a proprietary urban composting technology for Chinatown's food-related
businesses. The goals are to reduce the cost of waste disposal,
generate new sources of income through the sale of compost, and
promote "inter-neighborhood commerce" by exchanging products
with neighboring urban agricultural projects. Also, if proven successful,
the project anticipates participating in the manufacturing and marketing
of this new urban composting system. Project partners include the
Chelsea Center for Recycling and Economic Development, the Gaia
Institute, the 88 supermarket in Chinatown and the Boston Coalition
for Sustainable Development.
The
Chinatown Initiative
ACDC has been a major participant in a community planning initiative
called The Chinatown Initiative (TCI). TCI was developed by a coalition
of community-based organizations and community members to help explain
the development process, encourage residents and other stakeholders
to take part in the development of a shared community vision for
Chinatown's future, and incorporate this shared vision into an updated
Chinatown Community Plan which will guide the neighborhood's development.
TCI is an eighteen-month project that received funding from the
Mabel Louise Riley Foundation.
The
Chinatown Air Rights Development Project (CARD)
The Chinatown Air Rights Development Project (CARD) is a pro-active,
community-led study of the feasibility of mixed-use development
on the air rights parcels that abut Chinatown and the South End
along the Massachusetts Turnpike. The goal is to ensure that air
rights developments will meet the community's needs and desires.
For over a year, the CARD project staff has been meeting monthly
with consultants and study teams comprised of community members
and stakeholders to focus on specific areas relevant to development
of the air rights and the community. These study teams are Housing,
Business/Retail, Traffic and Transportation, Open Space and Public
Facilities, and Development Feasibility. Having received a number
of grants from private entities to conduct the study, the CARD project
will produce a community consensus master plan to present to city
agencies and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority in order to secure
development rights for a truly community-envisioned development.
More info...
Chinatown Physical Development Prospectus and Opportunities
The same realities that make community development projects in
Chinatown difficult provide opportunities for the community. In
Chinatown, community development projects are constrained by the low
turnover of property ownership, the absolute scarcity of land, an
extremely high percentage (one-third) of institutional ownership,
and high land values due to its proximity to downtown, the Midtown
Cultural District, the South End, and the Leather District. Each of
these truths have, in some manner, both protected Chinatown from
adverse changes and also prevented beneficial developments.
More info...
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