Who are we
Christ Church Community Development Corporation (CCCDC) is a non-sectarian, non-profit 501(C) agency devoted to ending homelessness in Bergen County, New Jersey. By practicing radical hospitality, building creative partnerships, marshalling resources, and encouraging volunteer efforts, we provide individual advocacy, guidance, and mentoring; address gaps in service; and foster dignity, achievement, and independence for each person we serve.
CCCDC’s overarching goal is to practice radical hospitality to rebuild the lives of homeless, at-risk, and in-crisis men and women in Bergen County.
Working in a unique collaborative environment in the Bergen County Housing, Health, and Human Services Center, our challenge is to maintain new programs and services built or rebuilt during the past year, and to continue to expand direct service and service partnerships as successfully and efficiently as possible without losing sight of our primary goal and major objective – to welcome, help, and house more and more of our neighbors in need.
Our work today is a direct outgrowth of seeds planted and nurtured by Christ Episcopal Church, Hackensack, in collaboration with other local churches and the long-time generous support of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark’s ACTS/VIM and Outreach Grant (now Alleluia Fund) programs.
For the last two decades, CCCDC has worked to realize the vision of ending homelessness in Bergen County. We came into existence in 1997 to administer a unique “no questions asked” safe haven named Peter’s Place, created the year before by the Interreligious Fellowship for the Homeless (now Family Promise of Bergen County) and Christ Church.
Not long after CCCDC began managing the safe haven, we started a client advocacy program that petitioned for entitlements and rights of the people we serve. For shelter guests and other dependent individuals Next Step provided a warm and understanding ambiance in which people move toward independence through professional assistance.
Today, CCCDC is the County of Bergen’s exclusive provider of sheltering services to single adults in the County’s pathbreaking Housing, Health and Human Services Center. Transplanted piece by piece over a number of months, each of our programs has survived and flourished in this new soil.
CCCDC continues to play a leadership role in major Bergen County achievements. Bergen achieved functional zero in Veterans’ homelessness – the first community in New Jersey to accomplish this. Bergen also achieved functional zero in chronic homelessness – the first community in the nation to accomplish this. CCCDC is particularly proud of this last accomplishment because chronic homeless folk were those CCCDC came into being to serve. Today Bergen is one of only two communities nationally to have achieved these milestones and sustained them. With our partners in service, we are working to meet the needs of increasing numbers of homeless folks at both ends of the age spectrum as more and more seniors are entering the homeless population nationally and in our state and county as well.
CCCDC is known through our service community for a commitment to radical hospitality – an approach cited by the selection committee a major reason for their choice of shelter and outreach provider for the new Center. Everyone who comes through the Center doors or reaches out to our remote service team is welcomed by CCCDC’s staff, student interns, and volunteers and by the members of the service community who work alongside us as collaborators and partners. Radical hospitality means acceptance and respect for everyone who needs help. As much as possible, we encourage racial, ethnic, age, and cultural diversity among current CCCDC, and expect Center workers to be as diverse as possible in outlook and in their approach to guests.
Everyone is met where they are, accepted, and encouraged and empowered to repair their dreams, rebuild their lives, and find their best road to home.