The Community Place- Media Room

The Community Place Receives Prestigious Award
for Housing

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (September 19, 2006) – The Community Place of Greater Rochester, Inc. (CPGR) has received a Family Strengthening Development Award and grant from the United Neighborhood Centers of America (UNCA) and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The award is in recognition of CPGR’s Housing Opportunities for Sustainability and Transition (HOST) Program, a community housing and economic development program.

CPGR staff members traveled to Washington, D.C. to accept the award during a three-day national UNCA conference. As part of the award, CPGR received grant funds and will receive program planning and development support throughout the year. Just six organizations from around the U.S. receive a Family Strengthening Award each year.

CPGR’s HOST Program aims to improve neighborhood stability and vitality by reducing family transience caused by economic and social factors such as job loss, divorce or separation, and so on. CPGR purchases blighted properties in the city, renovates them, and rents them to low-income families and individuals for reasonable prices. CPGR also makes purchase of the home an option if it becomes economically viable for the occupant(s) to do so. Community members that reside in the properties are also connected to CPGR’s many programs and services. To date one apartment building with 13 living units, a mixed use building with six living units, and seven houses have been renovated and rented to community residents. In just a few years the program has drastically improved the area around CPGR’s facility on Parsells Avenue. The HOST Program also offers a number of economic development programs.

United Neighborhood Centers of America, Inc. was organized in 1911 as a national nonprofit organization to advocate on behalf of the poor and to provide training, leadership skills, and management assistance to neighborhood centers. Its members, which are located in 52 cities in 23 states throughout the U.S., serve approximately one million individuals each year.

The Community Place of Greater Rochester, Inc. is a nonprofit provider of neighborhood-based human services that offers a variety of programs and services to individuals, families, children, the aging, and the developmentally disabled living in the greater Rochester area. CPGR was formed in 2001 after the merger of the former Lewis Street Center, Genesee Settlement House, and Eastside Community Center. Visit us on the web at www.communityplace.org.