Project led by: 

PI: Ayana Allen-Handy, PhD
Co-I: Rachel Wenrick
Co-I: Christopher Wright, PhD

Drexel University’s transdisciplinary team, in partnership with an established cross-sector network will address urgent affordable housing needs in the West Philadelphia Promise Zone neighborhood of Mantua, a rapidly gentrifying community that is also one of the nation’s most impoverished. The purpose of this project is to develop, implement, and evaluate the Second Story Collective (2SC) arts-centered model for intergenerational co-housing as an anti-displacement and aging-in-place strategy. The 2SC has the potential to be implemented in similar communities throughout the US, and results from this pilot will serve as a model of sustained community-driven solutions for equitable development, particularly for historically marginalized Black communities.