Help make our neighbor’s home safe, and preserve important history in our Mt. Airy Neighborhood!

Our neighbor, Kar, spent her childhood in a sweet 100 year old row home with a colorful roof. This house was bought by her grandparents in the 1970's (though, they purchased it from a cousin so this house was in the family even before then!). She has a lot of stories about what our block was like in the 70’s and 80’s – who would sit on their porches keeping an eye on the kids, what dishes everyone would bring to the block party, and how excited everyone was for Mt. Airy Day.

A few decades later, Kar’s family was embroiled in a battle to reclaim the deed to the house after the deed was stolen from her Mother and sold to a developer. After winning the deed back, the house was thrown into disrepair as an act of vengeance.

Since 2020, the neighboring row home has been vacant, contributing to more and more structural issues, many of which (due to job loss and precarious finances) have been awaiting repair and escalated in damage, now making Kar’s home at risk of collapse.

She now has a plan for the work to be done -- critical masonry to shore up the back wall, important plumbing work, and replacing significant beams that the structure relies on are all going to be necessary, but we need to raise the money to make it happen. We’re asking for the community to come together to help Kar keep her home and this piece of family and Mt. Airy history, standing!

We know that due to systemic anti-Blackness, Black home owners are more likely to lose their homes than white homeowners. After we cover the costs to make the home safe, we’re hoping to pool our collective resources to give Kar’s house the kind of rehab it needs to last another 100 years so one day, her daughter can be the 4th generation to live here. Help us ensure that we keep these historic Mt. Airy homes safe to inhabit and in the hands of Black Philadelphians who have owned them for generations!