Dennis Capozzolo,
Interim Executive Director

830 Hamilton Street
Allentown, PA 18101

Phone: (610) 439-7007
Fax: (616) 439-7888

info@housingabc.org
www.housingabc.org

Counties Served: Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, Schuylkill

Incorporated: 1975

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STRATEGIES & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Homeownership Opportunities
Alliance for Building Communities (ABC) assists families as they improve credit while saving to purchase their own homes. Through its Doorway to Homeownership program, ABC provides individualized training in budgeting, maintenance and upkeep of properties. The Doorway program requires participants to attend credit counseling sessions, adhere to a strict monthly budget, deposit monthly payments into an escrow account for closing costs and repay at least $50 per month toward their debt.

Affordable Rental Housing
ABC currently owns and manages rental housing for more than 300 low-and-very-low-income families and senior citizens throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania. Within the last year, ABC completed construction and fully rented an affordable independent living senior housing complex in Bethlehem, PA with 27 one-bedroom apartments, including four wheelchair-accessible units.

In late 2007, the agency completed the rehabilitation of the former Tamaqua Boot and Shoe Factory. Built in the late 1800’s, in Tamaqua PA, the old factory was transformed into 14 units of affordable rental housing. The structure is 20,000 square feet and includes four one-bedroom, five two-bedroom and five three-bedroom apartments. Two of the apartments are wheelchair-accessible. The complex includes a community room, a laundry room, on-site parking and a newly landscaped courtyard that contains a small fenced-off area with playground equipment. 401 Hazle Street is within walking distance to food markets, medical offices, pharmacies, churches, a post office, library, day care and banks.

In the fall of 2007, ABC began rehabilitation of the old Hamburg Knitting Mill built in 1902 in Hamburg, PA. The complex has been renamed Knitting Mill at Peach Alley and, when completed in late 2008, will contain 27 apartments for independent seniors. Future Peach Alley residents will be within a short walking distance of all essential services in the Borough of Hamburg.

Community Improvement
In recent years, ABC collaborated with the Lehigh Valley Community Mural Project (a partnership between the Hispanic American League of Artists and ABC) to bring three large murals to center city Allentown. Each of the murals, designed and created in collaboration with residents from the neighborhoods in which they were painted, are aesthetic enhancements to communities that are working very hard to rehabilitate themselves back into clean, safe and affordable family neighborhoods.