Case Study: Abyssinian Development Corporation

For over a Century, U.S. reformists have struggled to remedy poverty challenges in low-income residences. Initially, these reformers could only decide on a handful of solutions. Still, by the end of the 20th Century, they had diversified their efforts to an expansive, dynamic, and complex action field such as community development corporations (CDCs) (Von Hoffman, 2012).

In community development and empowerment, CDCs play a vital role in ensuring that communities receive the necessary and effective services required for the development. CDCs are nonprofit organizations created to support and offer better revitalization support that positively transforms a community. In this case, most of the CDCs tend to cast a critical eye on housing as the primary and core objective in molding the community within a given society. CDCs also offers extensive engagement in supporting basic community needs such as education, healthcare, job training, commercial development, and social programs that seek to address community challenges. Even though communities tend to differ, most CDCs tend to adopt a similar framework when dealing with a community.

Several nonprofit CDCs have operated in the lowest income urban and rural spheres nationwide. CDCs emerged as alternative forces in the 1980s to improve the inner cities' revitalization. During the 1980s and 1990s, the community development movement provided the most conspicuous signs of inner cities' new outlook (Andrews & Erickson, 2012). The ghetto construction rehabilitation framework adopted by CDC's entailed mostly affordable housing programs and the establishment of industrial facilities to stimulate economic welfare of respective residential populations; however, most CDCs also sought to address educational inadequacies within the dilapidated settlements. (Andrews & Erickson, 2012). These organizations, such as Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC), have helped stabilize social welfare and assist families and individuals in the most neglected neighborhoods. This paper explores several ADC aspects; history, political and cultural aspects, assets, challenges, and compares its operations with other organizations within the CDC sphere.

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