Who We Are
Our Programs
Our programs include recreational and cultural activities and educational programs. We match up youth, volunteers, and trainees to work with and to learn from contractors in rehabilitating abandoned properties. We show youth and trainees the practical application of the arts and sciences that they have learned in school while they learn valuable and marketable skills.
A Win-Win Situation
The use of abandoned houses as learning laboratories during rehabilitation results in eliminating an abandoned house and restoring it to the tax base. Qualified participants and others in the market for affordable housing have the opportunity to rent of purchase the property. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Taking Care of Veterans
The Community Education and Development Centers (CEDC) also sponsors a project to counsel, evaluate, train, and employ homeless veterans in housing rehabilitation. The veterans are taught how to completely renovate previously abandoned properties. This is particularly important because Philadelphia has over 27,000 abandoned houses and also because one out of three homeless men is a veteran of the armed forces. This program turns the available housing stock into learning laboratories while the properties are under construction.
Once completed, the veterans have a property to rent of purchase along with acquiring a marketable skill. CEDC seeks donations of money, services, building materials, real estate, and volunteers to support our training and rehabilitation projects.