Officials broke ground Tuesday on the Nayda Cintron Apartments, a 40-home affordable housing development rising on a cluster of vacant lots in Fairhill, North Philadelphia. The project will bring three buildings to 513-533 W. Cumberland St., with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes designed to serve lower-income families in a neighborhood where housing costs have climbed sharply over the past decade.
According to 6abc Philadelphia, the development will include 40 apartments for lower-income families, among them 23 two-bedroom units and 15 three-bedroom units. The broader project description, detailed by developer Stone Sherick, lists two one-bedroom homes alongside those larger units, rounding out the 40-home total. Ten of the homes will be reserved for people with physical disabilities, as reported by PhillyVoice.
Stone Sherick's project page goes further on accessibility, describing 10 fully ADA-accessible homes, two units designed for people with hearing or visual impairments, and 36 VisitAble homes across the development. Thirty of the 40 units will carry project-based rental assistance through Faircloth to RAD vouchers, the same source notes, a funding mechanism that ties rental support directly to the units themselves rather than to individual tenants.
Who the Project Honors
The apartments are named for Nayda Cintron, a community leader and founder of Xiente, the organization formerly known as the Norris Square Community Alliance, PhillyVoice reports. The Women's Community Revitalization Project, the nonprofit behind the development, expects to complete all three buildings in early 2028, per its own announcement on the organization's news page.
Financing for the project includes a $1.7 million grant from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which the Women's Community Revitalization Project says will support construction of the 40 affordable homes. The overall project cost is reported differently depending on the source: PhillyVoice cites development consultant Stone Sherick's estimate of $23.5 million, while Stone Sherick's own project page lists the development cost at $25.3 million. The homes are also designed to meet Zero Energy Ready Homes standards and Enterprise Green Communities criteria, according to the developer's project page.
A Neighborhood Squeezed by Rising Rents
The need for the housing is stark. PolicyMap data cited by PhillyVoice show that 42% of Fairhill residents earn less than $25,000 per year, and among area residents earning less than $50,000 annually, 94% spend more than one-third of their income on housing costs — a rate the outlet says is 10% higher than the citywide average for that income bracket.
Those pressures aren't unique to Fairhill. The Pew Charitable Trusts has reported that North Philadelphia's median rent climbed 29% between 2009 and 2018, rising from $713 per month to $917. Citywide, the gap is even more pronounced for the poorest renters: the Housing Initiative at Penn found Philadelphia had a shortage of 64,549 affordable and available housing units for households earning below 30% of area median income, based on 2023 data, and that 70% of renters in that income bracket spent more than half their income on housing that same year.
The city has been trying to close that gap. By June 2024, Philadelphia had produced or preserved nearly 15,000 housing units per year under its 10-year housing plan, with more than 9,000 of those units per year targeting households earning below 80% of area median income, according to the Housing Initiative at Penn's assessment.
Another Affordable Project Nearby
The Nayda Cintron Apartments aren't the only affordable housing effort reshaping North Philadelphia. Jonathan Rose Companies is planning a 129-unit affordable apartment building at 11th and Berks streets, across from Temple University, according to WHYY. That six-story project marks the final phase of a yearslong effort to redevelop the former Norris Homes public housing site, which was demolished between 2011 and 2019, and is expected to include 60 one-bedroom, 60 two-bedroom and nine three-bedroom apartments. Construction on that project is expected to start early next year and take 18 to 24 months to complete, WHYY reports.
