Core Language

Affordable Housing: housing that is available for people who cannot afford to rent or buy houses generally available on the open market. According to HUD, the generally accepted definition of affordability is for a household to pay no more than 30% of its annual income on housing. Families who pay more are considered cost burdened and may have difficulty affording basic necessities. (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development)

Asset-Based Community Development: a development strategy starts with what is present in the community, the capacities of its residents and workers, the associational and institutional base of the area – not with what is absent, or with what is problematic, or with what the community needs. (Building Communities from the Inside Out: a Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight)

Asset Mapping: identifies a community’s resources, so that they might be better mobilized in the transformation of the community. The inventory enables developers to start with what is available within the community.

Charis: derived from a Greek word meaning grace, kindness.

Christian Community Development: puts the energy and imagination of the kingdom to work for the peace of the city. Put another way, community development is peaceable work that generates practical was of living toward a healthier, more just, and more joyful life with our neighbors and before God. (To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith in the Changing Inner City by Mark R. Gornik)

Community Chaplaincy: pastor to the neighborhood. Charis joins with neighborhoods in the process of transformation. We desire to honor what already exists. As churches frequently dot the landscape of inner city communities, we choose to work with these established churches rather than start a new church plant. Community Chaplains work to unite the local churches, as well as to reach the un-churched living in our target neighborhood.

Community Development (or Community Building): involves the people over time in their neighborhood as co-creators and co-learners in defining the desired outcomes of their community, discovery and definition of the issues to be addressed, and creating and implementing solutions to the issues of concern. It is an act of midwifery – of a community giving birth to its future.

Community Profile: a definition of the neighborhood. It familiarizes one with an area’s characteristics and issues relating to geography and social capital.

Defensible Spaces: geographic area in which neighbors know and look out for each other’s families and belongings.

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