ACDC was born in response to critical community needs. During the mid 1980’s, when Boston’s Chinatown sorely lacked affordable housing, Asian immigrants and other low income families had extreme difficulty in securing affordable homes, forcing many out of the neighborhood and into the suburbs where even greater cultural and linguistic barriers limited their access to essential services and job opportunities. Community leaders founded ACDC to address these injustices.

Our History Over the Years

• 1987 – ACDC was formed by community leaders and former Chinatown residents. 

• 1994 – ACDC completed Oak Terrace, an 88-unit mixed income residential project, now home to over 300 residents, as well as neighborhood businesses. 

• 1999 – ACDC became a founding member of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD). 

• 1999 – ACDC launched its first youth program.

•  2000 – ACDC initiated its Comprehensive Home Ownership Program (CHOP) to provide Chinese-language homebuyer workshops and other services to low income families and individuals.

• 2002 – ACDC launched a campaign to reclaim Parcel 24 from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and played a leadership role in the Hudson Street for Chinatown (HSC), a coalition comprised of grassroots community organizations, neighborhood leaders, and residents. ACDC provided technical and organizing resources to the two-year campaign to create a community vision for the land.

• 2004 – ACDC and Edward A. Fish & Associates completed the Metropolitan, a mixed-income development at Parcel C, which offers 251 mixed- income units as well as space for community organizations. 46% of the units (or 115) are home to low and moderate-income households. 

• April 2012 – ACDC completed its first affordable housing development in Quincy at 6 Fort Street, providing 34 units of affordable apartments.   

• September 2014 – ACDC began renovations on Tremont Village, a 20-unit low-income apartment building at the border of Chinatown and Bay Village. Renovations were completed in 2015.

• August 2015 – ACDC and New Boston completed One Greenway, which provides 312 mixed-income apartments, as well as home to the Pao Arts Center, and an open green space. 95 of the rental units are designated for low- and moderate-income families. 

• 2016 – ACDC expanded its financial and first-time homebuyer program and services to Malden, where more than 20% of residents were Asian. 

• August 2016 – ACDC youth collaborated with Chinatown Main Street youth and WalkBoston to run a pedestrian safety campaign in Chinatown. After research and a presentation to the Boston Transportation Department appealing for specific structural improvements, BTD nearly doubled the walk light time, installed multiple signs prohibiting turns on red lights, and painted street markers to prevent cars from rolling over stoplight boundaries. 

• 2017 – ACDC completed construction on 51 affordable condos in Chinatown at 88 Hudson Street.

• 2017 – ACDC, artist Shaina Lu, and long-time Chinatown resident Yvonne Ng partnered to unveil Tied Together by a Thousand Threads, a mural on the facade of 15-25 Harrison Avenue. As part of ACDC’s ANCHOR strategy to use community-centered public art to combat gentrification in Chinatown, the mural has been a site where community members resisted the redevelopment of the now-abandoned housing units into a luxury hotel.

Following the unveiling of the Shaina Lu and Yvonne Ng’s Tied Together by a Thousand Threads, we asked chinatown residents to share how their stories and family history connect to the mural. Watch the short film above by Shawnie Wen.

• 2018 – ACDC opened a satellite office in Malden and expanded the A-VOYCE youth program to support Malden youths. 

• 2018 – ACDC completed the rehabilitation of Oak Terrace, increasing energy efficiency and upgrading appliances for 88 households in the building. 

• May 2019 – High school students from ACDC’s A-VOYCE youth program transformed an abandoned lot in the heart of Boston Chinatown into the Chinatown Backyard, an outdoor space with community garden plots and space for art installations. 

• 2019 – ACDC partnered with Pao Arts Center to host Residence Lab, a 26-week community-centered residency. The residency brought together artists and residents to collectively preserve Boston’s Chinatown through creative and artistic activation of underutilized sites in the neighborhood. The annual residency program ran from 2019 to 2022. 

• 2020 – The COVID-19 lockdown began. ACDC pledged an eviction moratorium for our residents through the end of 2020 and continuing to work with them to prevent eviction, supporting 249 households. 

• 2020 – ACDC partnered with Asian American Resource Workshop, Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, Chinese Progressive Association, Greater Boston Legal Services, and VietAID to form the Asian Community Emergency Relief Fund, raising and distributing over $350,000 in 2020, and another $150,000 in 2021. 

• 2021 – The COVID-19 pandemic continued. ACDC provided in-language assistance to over 700 low-income households to apply for rental and mortgage assistance and keep families housed.  

• 2021 – ACDC’s Building Blocks program expanded our Matched Savings programs to offer a 3-year, retirement-specific program to support immigrant families who are disproportionately self-employed or work in sectors that do not offer employer-sponsored retirement plans. 

• 2021 –  ACDC revealed its inaugural Hudson Street Stoop installation, Storytelling & Sway by Gianna Stewart. Hudson Street Stoop is a rotating public art initiative, transforming One Greenway Park into an activated and inclusive neighborhood “stoop.”

• 2021 – ACDC revealed "Where We Belong / 归属，归宿" mural by Ponnapa Prakkamakul, who worked with our youth and Chinatown residents to create this 150-foot mural honoring the site's history as a former noodle factory.  

• February 2022 – ACDC purchased 64-68 Beach Street to preserve this 14-unit building and its ground floor restaurant. 

• 2023 – ACDC celebrated the opening of Hudson Street Stoop’s second installation, Dancing Dragon by Katherine Chin and Parke MacDowell.  

• September 2025 – ACDC celebrated the groundbreaking of 55 Hudson. The 12-story, mixed-use building will include 66 affordable rental apartments and 44 affordable homeownership units, built above a two-story, 17,000-square-foot space for the permanent Chinatown branch of the Boston Public Library . 

• 2025 – Resident Leadership Academy (RLA)’s 2025 cohort collaborated with artist ponnapa prakkamakul to unveil Secret Gardens We Shared, a mural located on 9 Knapp St.  

• 2026 – ACDC celebrated the opening of Hudson Street Stoop’s third installation, A Place Like Home by ponnapa prakkamakul. In its third iteration, the Hudson Street Stoop program and artist ponnapa engaged over 350+ residents in co-creation workshops, where residents helped shape the design, feel, and contents of the installation. 

• 2026 – ACDC celebrated our first project in Malden with the groundbreaking of 213 Main Street, a 20-unit affordable housing development that will bring much needed affordable housing to the City of Malden.