Abstract
This article reviews the experience of the Phipps Houses Group, a nonprofit housing developer, in its attempt to foster a sense of community and family well-being in housing developments in an impoverished community. Drawing on the professional literature; interviews with tenants, staff, and members of the community; and a review of workers' records, the article discusses the community development program and gives a profile of tenants. Phipps Houses Group is presented as a contemporary exemplar of social service practice principles that can be applied in other sites in deteriorated neighborhoods: integration of housing and social work services, unified staff vision of program purpose, importance of on-site service provision, dual focus on individual families and buildingwide community, extension of service to the surrounding neighborhoods, and need for ongoing program evaluation. The authors suggest that this private-sector model of linking housing and social services should become more common as direct federal housing development diminishes.