Building Community
For four decades, Asian Community Development Corp. has created homes in Chinatown and beyond
Most mornings, Angie Liou's focus is less on the affordable housing developments rising in Chinatown and Malden than on the people who will live and organize inside them.
As the executive director of the Asian Community Development Corporation, Liou says the most meaningful part of her work is seeing immigrant residents finding their voices and taking leadership roles.
“We prioritize working with immigrant residents who maybe have limited English proficiency, and before they participate in our programs, many are very shy about speaking up at public meetings,” Liou tells Sampan. “But after they’ve gone through our leadership training programs, they’re much better at expressing themselves and advocating for themselves or for Chinatown.”
Founded in 1987 by community leaders and former Chinatown residents to address affordable housing needs, ACDC has developed affordable housing and helped Chinese American and immigrant residents build community. It has also expanded its work to include community programs alongside housing development. The organization will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year.
ACDC founders include longtime Chinatown residents and activists like attorney Paul W. Lee and the late Caroline Chang, who were born and raised in the neighborhood. Since its founding, ACDC leaders have long recognized the range of residents and household structures that have traditionally made up Chinatown. The organization identified a need for housing that could accommodate working-class families, professionals and multigenerational households, including larger units for families living with relatives.
Those considerations have guided ACDC’s housing development strategy since its founding, with the organization developing affordable and mixed-income housing projects in Chinatown and surrounding communities.
Some of the notable mixed-income projects include Oak Terrace project, which established an 88-unit mixed-income housing development that currently accommodates over 300 residents in 1994; The Metropolitan, a 251-unit mixed-income development designed to accommodate community organizations, with 46% of the units allocated for low- and moderate-income residents in 2004; and One Greenway, which introduced 362 mixed-income rental units, a 10,000-square-foot community space, and open green areas, including 95 units specifically allocated for low- and moderate-income families.
ACDC's current development pipeline includes 55 Hudson Street in Boston and projects at 213 Main St. and 245 Bryant St. in Malden. Liou says the developments are intended to preserve affordable housing while incorporating resident services and leadership programming.
But this hasn’t always been the case. Liou says ACDC’s past mixed-income housing developments did not represent the organization’s long-term housing model. In previous projects, market-rate units helped subsidize additional affordable units, which allowed ACDC to increase the overall number of affordable apartments created.
“We actually prioritize affordable housing,” Liou says. “When people say mixed-income housing, they could mean different things. A lot of people mean there are unrestricted, market-rate units mixed in with affordable housing where rents are restricted.”
Liou says ACDC does not pursue market-rate housing unless it directly supports community needs. Earlier projects, including The Metropolitan and One Greenway, combined market-rate and affordable apartments, with revenue from the market-rate units helping finance the affordable housing.
As housing market conditions have changed, however, market-rate development no longer provides the same financial support for affordable housing, which leads the organization to plan future projects as fully affordable developments.
"We're very conscious that even when we go out and build affordable housing, it's not just to build housing for its own sake," Liou says. "We build housing (units) because people need them. It's really about the people living in them."
According to Liou, rising development costs and financing conditions have made that model less viable. More recent projects have therefore been planned as fully affordable developments.
"The economics of development have changed a lot," Liou says. "So, for more recent projects that we have undertaken, they're all affordable because it's gotten to the point where even building market rate, they would not subsidize or create more affordable units."
The Bipartisan Policy Center reported that construction and labor costs in Boston remain high. Materials are expensive in part because of supply chain disruptions and land costs have increased. Shrinking federal housing funds have left more organizations vying for fewer dollars, according to a report in the Boston Globe.
One of ACDC's biggest challenges today is rising development costs, Liou says. The organization relies on public financing programs, including federal tax credits distributed through state and local agencies, to support many of its projects.
The demographic ACDC serves has also changed. Chinatown, historically home to Cantonese- and Taishanese-speaking populations, has seen more Mandarin- and Fujianese-speaking immigrants in recent years. The changes have altered staffing and language access across programs, particularly those serving older adults and recent immigrants.
In addition to developing housing, ACDC operates leadership programs, such as Resident Leadership Academy and MorePLAY designed to increase civic participation among the residents. The program provides public speaking and advocacy training, including information on local government processes and advocating in front of elected officials.
The organization launched its A-VOYCE youth program in 1999, which provides young people the opportunities to participate in projects related to issues including urban planning, climate resilience, food access and transportation across Greater Boston.
Emma Ishida, the youth program manager at ACDC, says the youth program serves participants from across Greater Boston, including Chinatown, Quincy, Malden, Dorchester and Roxbury. Initially focused on Chinese American youth, the program now includes participants from a wider range of Asian backgrounds, including Vietnamese, Nepali and South Asian communities.
“One thing that a lot of people do walk away with is that they felt like they built a lot of community at ACDC,” Ishida says. “Maybe they are like ‘my parents made me come here,’ and then at the end they’re like ‘now I know I can say for myself why I’m here, like why I’m proud to be here.’”
One of ACDC’s longest-running youth initiatives is Films at the Gate, an outdoor summer film festival celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Held Aug. 14-16 at the Chinatown gates, the festival features Chinese-language martial arts films and community programming organized by youth participants.
“When you look at it, it’s like a festival. It’s kung fu; it’s youth-led; it’s a lot of joy,” Ishida says. “I think that also brings a lot of like presence where we’re like, we’re still here and we’re gonna continue to be here for the next many, many decades."
According to Ishida, many participants stay involved with the organization for multiple years, and they have expanded interests from community service to areas such as environmental justice, urban planning and civic engagement. Some alumni pursue related fields in college, and others continue community advocacy after completing the program.
A recognized Community Housing Development Organization under federal law, ACDC is required to maintain community representation in their governance structures. Under CHDO requirements, at least one-third of the board must represent the low-income community, including low-income residents or representatives of organizations that serve them. The remaining board members may include representatives of other community stakeholders, such as nonprofit organizations, businesses and public officials.
“For decades, the Asian Community Development Corporation has been a key partner in advancing housing opportunities for our residents in Boston,” Mayor Michelle Wu told Sampan. “This major milestone reflects their continued leadership to keep Chinatown and surrounding areas beautiful, culturally connected, and welcoming for families, while empowering young people to shape their communities.”
Former ACDC executive director Jeremy Liu, now chief housing officer at FwdSlash, reinforced that ACDC's work has never focused solely on housing.
During his time working at ACDC, Liu recalls an interaction with a Chinese woman who came to the office seeking assistance. She spoke Cantonese, and Liu attempted to communicate with her in Mandarin.
Liu says that as they struggled to understand each other, the woman eventually told him that her Mandarin was poor and asked whether someone who spoke Cantonese could help her.
Later, Liu realized that the woman was referring to the difficulty of understanding his Mandarin rather than her own. “It was very, very personal,” he says. “I’m just gonna speak whatever Chinese I can to you. I’m here to do whatever it takes.”
Liu described the interaction as a personal part of his experience as a U.S.-born Chinese American working with immigrant residents. He says the encounter was one example of how he built relationships with community members across language barriers.
“She pretended that it was her Mandarin that was bad,” Liu recalls. “And in fact it was actually my Mandarin that was horrible.”
Raised in California, Liu came to ACDC with a background in community organizing and planning. He says his experience in Chinatown changed his perspective on community work.
“It was about human development," Liu says. "And to me, that's the definition of community development.”
With the organization’s work that has often grown from the needs raised by residents, Liu says a core part of ACDC’s mission is its ability to adapt alongside the community it serves.
“Its legacy is being really responsive to community needs,” Liu says. “I think it can be really innovative, and I think that's a really great legacy to have.”
For Liu, the people connected to ACDC’s work is one of the organization’s most significant contributions.
“My legacy is the people,” he says. “And I think that's the most important legacy.”
This story was funded in part by Boston 250, a public-private partnership between the City of Boston and private sector partners, including Meet Boston, State Street, The Boston Foundation, John Hancock, Eastern Bank, Liberty Mutual, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and PNC Bank. Learn more at boston250.org.
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