Lancaster Equity CDC

Increasing Economic Opportunity for Everyone

LECDC’s board is comprised of representatives from a variety of organizations that do community and economic development work in Lancaster, including: Community Action Partnership, Spanish-American Civil Association, Lancaster County Workforce Development Board, Fulton Bank, Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership, Lancaster Coalition to End Homelessness, Lancaster City Alliance, Community First Fund, Tabor Community Services, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, ASSETS, and Habitat for Humanity. Now that the organization is finished with strategic planning, they are seeking low-moderate income residents to sit on the board as well.

Since the 1980s, the Community Action Partnership had a subsidiary called CAP Housing Inc., which owned and maintained a subsidized housing complex called Duke Manor. In 2017, that extension of the Community Action Partnership was remade into Lancaster Equity. Lancaster Equity still holds and maintains the Duke Manor property, which has generated significant revenue over the last several decades, and now invests that revenue in other properties around the County.

Currently, LECDC operates primarily in the south side of Lancaster City, rehabbing blighted houses with CAP’s social enterprise construction crew, CAPital Construction. CAPital Construction is comprised of individuals with barriers to employment. In their position with CAPital, these individuals are taught the soft and hard skills (including lead remediation) that they need to get a construction job in the future and are paid a livable wage. Upon completing a renovation, LECDC either sells those homes to low-moderate income first time home buyers through a program of Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnerships or acts as a scattered-site landlord depending on the property.