Several blocks away, on the north side of Washington Avenue, Gamble and his community-development corporation, Universal Companies, have been credited with bringing parts of South Philadelphia out of the abyss through educational opportunities and real estate redevelopment.
Now, through a federal grant announced Monday, Gamble hopes to rebuild the 200 blocks that make up Point Breeze and Grays Ferry, two of the city's most distressed neighborhoods, battling an economic devastation that rivals Detroit.
Through its Promise Neighborhoods initiative, the U.S. Department of Education took applications last year for a one-year planning grant, ranging from $400,000 to $500,000. The goal was to help communities develop a comprehensive plan that addressed their most pressing problems, and get children from the cradle through college graduation. If Universal's long-term strategy impresses the government, the nonprofit group could get a share of a $200 million grant to make it a reality.
In its application, Universal painted the grim picture:
About 50,000 people call Point Breeze and Grays Ferry home, two neighborhoods that run from the Schuylkill to Broad Street, from Washington to Passyunk Avenues.
They are largely African American, with about 7,000 children enrolled in the neighborhood schools. Seventy percent of those students live in poverty, in households headed by single mothers. More than half of them will drop out of school. And most of the ninth and 10th graders still sitting in class cannot read or perform math at grade level.
Out of 339 applicants, Universal was one of just 21 awarded funding, $500,000. The nonprofit organization raised another $500,000, including $250,000 from the William Penn Foundation, to lay out its "PointGrays" transformation plan.
