Students celebrate building house for use by local residents

The University's Entrepreneurial Inner City Housing Markets class invited West Philadelphia residents to their classroom on Friday for a party to celebrate the end of the semester. Neighborhood residents wandered through a newly renovated house at 32nd and Spring Garden streets to inspect the results of four semesters of work and to mingle with the students who made it possible. "I wish they would do it next to my house," said Jerleine Bailey, who lives nearby. As students ate cake and reminisced about their experiences in the course, a video of their work during the semester played in the background. Class participants worked together to renovate the West Philadelphia house, merging business theories learned in the classroom with hard work to finish the project. "You have students who are studying all the issues and putting them into practice," said Carol Scheman, vice president for government, community and public affairs. "These are the kind of efforts that will make a difference in the community." City Councilwoman Happy Fernandez also made an appearance at the party. "You're not only providing a home for somebody, but you're helping the neighborhood," she told the students. Professors William Zucker and Hanley Bodek, who have taught the course since its inception eight years ago, said they have spoken to several other universities about duplicating the class. Scheman said the University is trying to form a partnership with local church ministers to include local residents in the renovation efforts. Over the years, Zucker and Bodek's students have renovated four houses. A fifth house has already been purchased, and work will begin next semester. "It teaches you how to cooperate," Wharton senior Catherine Henry said. "If you don't cooperate, you ain't getting the job done." College sophomore Allissa Zolla called the class "the most fun I've had at Penn." The students reworked the house from scratch, rebuilding the floors before renovating the interior rooms. The only professionals that worked on the project were a carpenter and an electrician. Each week, a different student served as foreman. The others oversaw different parts of the project -- including managing the overall implementation of the renovation plans, marketing the house and investing the profits. Students were required to work on the house at least four hours each week -- in addition to attending classroom lectures on community service and writing a final paper for the course. The class bought the dilapidated house from the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation two years ago after securing a loan of $30,000 from area developers. Jerard Williams, a city fireman, bought the house for $80,000.