For Tufts alumni Todd Abedon and Emily Perlman Abedon, the best way to feel at home is to help others feel the same way.
Medford/Somerville, Mass. [03.07.08] A roof over your head is a start, but for many Americans living below the poverty line, it isn't enough. These residents lack the resources to make basic repairs to their homes, barring them from comfort, independence and safety.
For Todd Abedon (A'87) and Emily Perlman Abedon (J'90), those needs are too pressing to ignore. The couple founded their own non-profit, Operation Home, to address the problem with housing in their city of Charleston, S. C. Now in its tenth year, Operation Home makes homes safer and more livable, especially for the elderly, families with small children and the disabled.
"Inadequate housing is kind of the umbrella term, where people have homes, but really they shouldn't even be living in them sometimes," explains Perlman Abedon. "You have people living in just extreme dilapidation, and frequently disabled or elderly people with just no means of getting any help."
The need is great in Charleston County, where over 175,000 people live at or below the federal poverty line. "It's a legacy of slavery and segregation," Abedon says. "The people that live in these rural areas are sort of left behind. The rural South is a tough place."
The problem is compounded by a state law known as heirs' property, in which large tracts of land are deeded in the name of a deceased relative and have been passed down through generations, usually through African American families.
"Everyone there knows whose property is whose, but in those neighborhoods nobody's eligible for Habitat for Humanity or some of the different government repair programs," Perlman Abedon says.
Several non-profits have worked in Charleston County to improve conditions, but what sets Operation Home apart is its grassroots approach. The organization brings together local businesses and members of the community, who donate their time, services and expertise to help fix up broken homes.
"We've found that people really want to help their community," says Perlman Abedon. "And if you can help make it easier for them to tap into something, they're going to jump on it."
The grassroots approach of Operation Home is no accident. The organization started as a favor between friends. After the birth of their first child, Abedon, who is managing partner of real estate development and management firm, began to think about how the connections he'd built with local businesses might be used to help those in need.
"We just had the feeling a lot of new parents have where you can't believe your luck to have this healthy child," recalls Perlman Abedon. "And Todd just said, you know, we could pull every favor that we have and see if we can just help somebody."
The Abedons called the local head of Meals on Wheels, who instantly knew of an older woman who lived alone and had trouble getting around her house. "We never, ever intended on starting a non-profit," says Perlman Abedon, "but what happened was that we almost instantly got asked to work on another [case], and our eyes got opened to a niche that wasn't being filled."
"If we could figure out a way to address the need, then there was always the opportunity to grow larger," says Abedon.
Expansion was at times a challenge for the couple, who both work and have four young children. "It was sort of easy in the beginning, because there were no expectations, so every single thing we did was great," says Perlman Abedon., who is also an editor for Charleston Magazine. As the organization grew and began to receive larger grants, things becamecomplicated.
"We started to have this budget, but we didn't have a big enough budget to actually have a staff," she says. "But I knew there was another place for us to go with it if we could just push through, and now we just can't even believe where it is."
Operation Home now has a full-time staff, and takes on a case load that increases every year. In 2008 the organization plans to take on over 150 cases from more than 25 different agencies. Abedon was also recognized this year as a recipient of the Liberty Fellowship, a prestigious state fellowship that inspires leadership in South Carolina and lets recipients develop and implement their own projects.
The Abedons credit a strong liberal arts education for providing them with the foundation to pursue a project like Operation Home.
"I was an English and American Studies double-major," says Perlman Abedon. "The whole thing was drawing threads, and I think it really helped me to see the ways in which we're more alike than different. We walk down a lot of dirt roads that it would be a lot easier to just drive by, but the liberal arts education opens you up to the diversity of experiences."
"I think one of the things that Tufts gave me was the idea to go out and seek balance," says Abedon. "It's easy to lose balance in your life, but involvement like this can give you that kind of balance.
"Sol Gittleman used to say, ‘If you learn how to learn here at Tufts then we've been successful.' And this is just sort of an aspect of continuing to learn about the world, continuing to teach yourself all the time. You don't realize how much it's going to give back to you. It's given far more to us than we could probably ever give to it."
Profile written by Hannah Ehrlich (A'08)
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