Saint Joseph's Carpenter Society

Rebuilding homes, empowering futures, cultivating community.

Saint Joseph’s Carpenter Society strives to improve the quality of life of the people of the City of Camden and its surrounding communities by promoting affordable housing and neighborhood development. Through our initiatives, we encourage people to take charge of their lives and become active community members.

To that end, Saint Joseph’s Carpenter Society is regionally recognized as a leader in Camden’s revitalization. Our efforts, both in housing and economic development, have resulted in increased property values within a stable, mixed-income neighborhood. Strategic partnerships have helped us expand educational and employment opportunities, grow Camden’s housing market, improve public safety, strengthen commercial activity and raise the aesthetic appeal of the neighborhood.

Founded in 1985, SJCS is now working within 3 Camden City neighborhoods and 6 surrounding municipalities. We have created over 1,050 homes nearly 700 homeownership units.  We have graduated over 3,500 individuals from our Homeownership Academy with over 7,000 people attending. 

We believe that educated and engaged residents living within a safe and vibrant neighborhood and living within their means in an affordable maintenance-free home is the key to neighborhood growth and success. 

SJCS has education programs in financial literacy, first-time homebuying, home maintenance, and resident leadership and we are working towards programs in workforce development.  Our financial literacy and first-time homebuying programs are HUD certified and has led to a less than 4% foreclosure rate on over 700 units sold by SJCS. 

SJCS develops for sale housing both new construction and gut rehabilitation and sells these homes to homebuyers who complete our educational offerings.  In addition, we have 87 rental units available to low-income individuals in Camden.  We manage all of our units in-house and provide wrap around social services to our tenants. 

SJCS also has programs that help long existing homeowners, mainly seniors, make necessary repairs to keep them in the home longer and safer.  We handle both home repair programs and lead remediation programs. We’ve completed over 500 of these repairs. 

Finally, SJCS completes strategic improvements to the neighborhood to ensure that residents’ housing values are protected. These include neighborhood planning, marketing, surveying and analysis, place-making, park improvements and engagement, public domain art, infrastructure improvements, a neighborhood "help desk" and grant programs for locally-driven neighborhood improvements.