FREEDOM COMMONS GRAND OPENING & RIBBON CUTTING
Thursday, November 14, 2019 from 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM (EST)
Freedom Commons
450 Burt Street
Syracuse, NY 13202
Freedom Commons is a $14.9 million mixed-use initiative offering emergency, supportive and affordable housing. This exciting new mixed-use building is LEED Gold Certified with NYSERDA participation adding to the energy efficiency and sustainability features.
This housing partnership between the Center for Community Alternatives (CCA) and the Syracuse Housing Authority (SHA), is aimed at addressing broad community needs related to quality, health-supporting affordable housing and providing additional services specifically for justice involved individuals and their families in an effort to reduce recidivism and improve public safety. This is the country's first replication of the housing model started by The Fortune Society in New York City fifteen years ago that has received national and international recognition as an innovative and successful reentry program. What makes this project unique is the inclusion of Freedom Commons Academy modeled after The Fortune Society’s Castle Academy. The Academy supports individuals who are currently homeless and returning to the community after incarceration by providing them with robust supportive services and a culture of community designed to support their successful reentry and transition to housing stability and self-sufficiency.
Developed by Norstar Development USA, L.P., and designed by SWBR Architects, this project is a hallmark for the City of Syracuse and the first phase of a large-scale revitalization of the East Adams Street/Almond Street neighborhood. Capital funds to build the project were provided by NYS Homes & Community Renewal, NYS Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance, Key Bank, N.A., Key Community Development Corporation, Cooperative Federal Credit Union, Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, Central New York Community Foundation, INC. Operating assistance provided by NYS Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative, NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services, Syracuse Housing Authority Section 8 Program, Onondaga County Department of Social Services.
Freedom Commons is the first of many initiatives forthcoming in this neighborhood to address the need for opportunity, mixed-income housing, and community investments so that this historically economically disadvantaged neighborhood can be a place where living there means thriving there.
