Emilio Dorcely, CEO of Urban Edge Housing Corporation BOSTON (June 14, 2023) – In INSITES this week: Emilio Dorcely is the CEO of Urban Edge Housing Corporation in Boston, where he leads affordable housing development, family wealth building, and housing stability efforts. He also oversees neighborhood improvements through community engagement. Urban Edge was fou...

Photograph of Mel King on his 60th Birthday.  © 2023 Linda Haas Photography, LindaHaasPhoto.com BOSTON (April 26, 2023) – In INSITES this week: Mel King was a passionate leader, teacher, elected official, colleague, friend, and advocate for social justice and civil rights in the Boston area for most of his 94 years. As a community leader, he has had as much influe...

Two years ago, CEDAC launched the INSITES blog in anticipation of an important organizational milestone: our 40th anniversary.  We have enjoyed this opportunity to revisit our history and reflect on the events and the people who have led us to where we are today, and to highlight how community development in Massachusetts has evolved over four decades. This past spring...

In December 2018, former Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Communities and Development (a precursor to the state’s current Department of Housing and Community Development) Amy Anthony passed away suddenly. We’ve asked Mike Gondek, CEDAC’s former executive director, to share with us why Amy’s commitment was so important to CEDAC and the community de...

“Teamwork makes the dream work.” Mel King, legendary community activist and former state representative, invoked this phrase as he concluded his remarks at our 40th anniversary celebration on March 14th.  And Mel did not just speak these words, but rather inspired the audience to chant them together with him.  This phrase sums up his philosophy on community develo...

CEDAC is proud to celebrate 40 years of strengthening communities across the Commonwealth. We are thrilled to announce that we will honor former State Representative Mel King as we commemorate this anniversary this month. As a Massachusetts State Representative, Mel King sponsored legislation in 1978 which created CEDAC with a mission to support community-based developme...

Today in a special guest blog, CEDAC’s founding executive director, Carl Sussman, shares how and why CEDAC was established. Before CEDAC, Carl was a Cambridge Institute fellow in the early 1970s, and in the mid and late 1970s, he was active in crafting the state’s community development finance policies. Carl was the executive director of CEDAC for 15 years and played a...

Over the past four decades, CEDAC and the Massachusetts CDC movement have literally grown up together. We even share a piece of legislation: Chapter 40H contains both CEDAC’s enabling language, and the definition of a Community Development Corporation. As we look ahead to our 40th anniversary, we’ve taken note that in the past few years, we’ve spent many an evening a...

Welcome to CEDAC’s new blog. We plan to use this platform to share additional news, helpful information and perspectives on important topics. The launch of this blog coincides with a very special milestone for CEDAC – our 40th anniversary year – and we thought we’d take this opportunity to announce an exciting year-long effort to celebrate CEDAC past, present, ...