NCAC sign outside of the Coleman Library. (Photo: Rasheed Z. Ajamu)
The Neighborhood Community Action Center (NCAC) for the 8th District of Philadelphia has been around for almost a year, centered on a plan from Mayor Cherelle Parker for a city government that people can “see, touch, and feel.”
“The see, touch, and feel thing is real,” said Cameron Holmes, the 8th District NCAC Community Manager. “We want them (constituents) to be able to see how it works, to be able to have access to the process of getting it fixed, so they know. And I do believe that communication is like 80% of probably what we’re doing.”
Together with Community Organizer Kenneth Day, the two field in-person visits, calls, and emails, all through their office on the bottom floor of the Joseph E. Coleman Library, working with constituents to find solutions to their most pressing problems.
Community Engagement and Lessons Learned
It’s been a year of dealing with a variety of neighborhood issues like nuisance business complaints, connecting neighbors to city departments to see what they can do about problems on their specific blocks, and facing the physical street conditions on Chelten Avenue.
Through it all, deep community engagement and relationship building have been key.
One way Holmes and Day have engaged in the community is through community walks. Alongside one of their advisory board members, Sonia Garett from the Logan neighborhood, they walked the blocks in the neighborhood near Jay Cooke Elementary School as Garett and other neighbors pointed out street conditions and places where they wanted traffic calming measures in place.
Community walks also happened around Chelten Avenue in Germantown, with neighbor Kimberly Mathis.
Mathis shops on the avenue regularly, frequenting the Healing Pharmacy on Chelten Ave. near Greene St., the Philadelphia Vision Center, Rainbow, and other stores. She has become an advocate for a thriving business corridor. She has been in regular contact with Germantown United CDC, the 14th and 39th police district offices, and the NCAC to work towards making her optimism a reality.
Mathis says she’s seen illegal activity in front of specific shops and wanted city officials and police to document it.
“…I said, you guys need to take a walk with me and just pay attention to what you see,” said Mathis, prompting Holmes and Day to take the stroll with her.
The community walks gave them an up-close perspective on what neighbors in the 8th district were dealing with on their business corridors, residential blocks, and around their schools.
They made notes, contacted heads of city departments and police, and shared their own frustrations when the momentum was slow.
“I think one of the great things about the whole idea of the action center is that the people that work here really are part of the community. So we care. We’re out here walking down the street, too,” Holmes said.
“Some of the things that you, as community members, are concerned about, we’re concerned about it too. So we really want to try to get it done, you know, not only for the job, but just in general, you know, because we want to improve the quality of life in the area too, because we benefit from it too,” said Holmes.
An essential part of the work is follow-through, both Holmes and Day agree. Even if specific problems can’t be solved right away, or even at all, simple communication helps, they say. Many people tell them they put in complaints to the city and don’t know what happened. Holmes and Day both try to reach out personally to neighbors they’ve worked with to let them know what is going on.
“I’m going to tell you, there’s been a significant number of times where I’ve reached out to a constituent, and they said, you know what? Thank you for calling me back and keeping me informed. I really appreciate that,” said Holmes.
They keep a database to track the impact of every person they’ve talked to, and every case they’ve moved forward on, which they say is now in the hundreds.
One of the most important lessons Day says he has learned this year is the necessity of the office. He notes how much he sees neighbors taking on in their communities on a regular basis.
“You just don’t know how our residents are really, like, out here living and struggling,” said Day. It takes a toll on himself and Holmes, and they both know they need to take care of themselves while doing the work.
“It’s just, like, how much we actually take with us and how we’re affected by it, and all of the work we need to do… we need to clock out and be completely separated,” Day added.
The Wins and Successes
Making an impact on the nuisance businesses was a big win from this past year, Holmes mentioned, saying those were some of the first issues brought up by NCAC’s advisory board, made up of neighbors throughout the 8th district.
There were multiple businesses that people had problems with on the 22nd Street corridor in Allegheny West, where neighbors said they saw illegal drug activity or other disturbances. Holmes and Day worked with neighbors, the city, police officers, and Councilmember Cindy Bass’ office to ensure the complaints were factual and were a pattern of misbehavior.
On the heels of that work, the City Council recently passed two bills that could help the process of shutting down disruptive businesses that pose potential harm to communities.
Moving forward, if nuisance businesses cannot be closed, Day said they want to teach constituents the strategy and proper language to use to organize for themselves around getting businesses shut down.
One of the most recent examples of this was a recent community leader-recommended workshop on how to navigate Atlas, a city-operated online tool where you can find the history of permits, licenses, and inspections at any address in the city.
Aside from what could be considered a “bigger” win, being able to fulfill their mission in connecting people to city departments and the services they offer is just as considerable.
Pastor Shawn Edmonds of Capacity Church in Germantown connected with Day to help figure out what resources were available to bring to their We Outside community festival this past September.
The church tries to be very community-oriented, says Pastor Edmonds, hosting clothing giveaways, food drives, and more. Together, they were able to book the mayor’s recruiting bus to provide hiring and job opportunities at the festival.
“I think that they do a good job, and Ken is always evangelizing what the services are at the community action center and what’s available there. So I think they do a very good job at making sure that people are aware,” said Edmonds.
The Challenges
“To me, one of the major challenges is expectations. You know, a lot of times people expect that you can fix stuff right away. They almost have the impression … that we’re the ones fixing it, but we’re not. We’re kind of just a connector,” said Holmes.
He understands the frustration of neighbors when it seems like work isn’t being done fast enough, or even at all. But they both know it’s just sometimes not a simple line to a solution. Work on the streets, like in the case of Chelten Ave., could be held up by weather, by underground obstacles, or communication of next steps to the appropriate city departments, as one issue could have implications for several.
Another challenge Day brings up is rebuilding trust in the government. He and Holmes say they are always running into neighbors who tell them they have heard the same thing over and over from elected officials and the government, and they don’t see enough progress.
Neighbor Kim Mathis said she appreciated the mayor bringing back the mini neighborhood action centers to each district, but thinks they need to be more visible, and have their own office building, right out in the open, where more people can see them.
Moving into 2026
Holmes and Day are both looking forward to going into the new year with the lessons they’ve learned and the visions and goals they have for the office.
Day points out that staying in consistent touch with community leaders is key, supporting them, showing up to their events, and maintaining a regular line of communication.
“Just really just trying to create some kind of partnership and allowing them to be our voice out there, letting people know that, you know, we kind of get things done. That’s our goal,” said Day.
They want to grow the advisory board and ensure they have a representative from each neighborhood in the 8th district. They’ve seen advisory board members helping each other solve problems, where some community leaders in different parts of the district have dealt with problems and have given advice to other folks dealing with similar issues, and that’s exactly what they want to see from the group.
“We don’t know our limitations yet until we’re presented with an issue, and we kind of figure it out that way. I feel like the more issues we get, the more we learn. And it’s easier for us to kind of get the job done if we see something similar to it again,” said Day.
So bring your problems to them, says Holmes and Day. It just makes the office stronger and more equipped to partner with neighbors and deal with any challenge.
“The work we’re doing, we’re really trying to put ourselves out of business. You know, the goal is really to empower the community so they can do it. We’re just showing them the process,” said Holmes.
They hope to become more impactful and more efficient at getting the work done in 2026.
“The main thing is that what we’re really doing is trying to fulfill the mayor’s goal of making government accessible to the people,” Holmes added.
The Neighborhood Community Action Center 8th District is open from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays and 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. If getting to the office is an issue, call (267) 496-3596 or email NCACDistrict8@phila.gov for assistance.