Who Owns Camden? A Community First Initiative 

This project was inspired by the report, "Who Owns Newark?" an investigation of the percentage of Newark homes being purchased by corporations undertaken by academic partners of the REACH Housing Collaborative Learning Table (CLT). The Center for Urban Research and Education's (CURE) was asked to help create a similar report for Camden, because of the significant impact the Newark report had on policy.  

CURE is utilizing its Community First Fellows (CFF) program to enhance the connection between publicly engaged student learning and community benefit. Since last semester, a Community First Fellow has been working with Camden Community Development Association (CCDA) to analyze, clean, and report on the data gathered to understand the rate of corporate purchases in Camden. This fellow, who received training through a community research class, has aided in organizing and interpreting CCDA's project.  

Collaborating with CCDA on the "Who Owns Camden?" project is in line with the work of the Rutgers Law School Center for Law, Inequality, and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) by addressing housing as a social determinant of health and researching corporate purchases of property. The project aims to support Camden CDCs in their efforts to convince the city to allow more properties to be rehabilitated and sold as affordable housing to Camden residents.