The Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) honored Regional Housing Legal Services, Senior Counsel, Judy Berkman, with their Community Service Award on February 3rd.
Judy has worked with PCDC on multiple development projects, including The Eastern Tower, which will include a community center as well as 143 apartments and other residential developments in the neighborhood.
Upon receiving the award, Judy delivered the following remarks:
“I am humbled to receive the PCDC community service award, when there are so many here who dedicate so much effort to preserving Philadelphia Chinatown. I thank all of YOU for this wonderful community that enriches all of us who live in and visit Philadelphia!
I would especially like to thank John Chin and the PCDC staff; and the founders and Board of PCDC—now chaired by Margaret Chin, after Father Tom led the board with so many years of dedication. It has been a privilege to work with PCDC to achieve the dream of developing the Eastern Tower Community Center and helping preserve the abandoned Chinese Cultural Center on 10th Street for the benefit of the community! I also want to thank my colleagues at Regional Housing who make all this work possible!
Over the years of my legal practice, I have been inspired by my clients to take action to make the world a better place. I became a leader in efforts to eliminate gender, race/ethic, and other bias in the legal system not only after personal experiences and observations. I was inspired to fight bias in the legal system when I was a lawyer at CLS and represented a 17-year old Latino birth father. His parental rights were terminated because he was a high school drop-out and he was on his mother’s welfare grant. The Judge decided he did not have the capacity to parent because he would be a “permanent burden on the public’s largess”. I appealed that case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and lost! But it inspired me to improve the legal system—so that people are treated fairly, not based on stereotypes or with implicit bias.
At CLS, I also grew passionate about the need for decent affordable housing, after representing 2 women with children who lived with no heat or plumbing. Electric cords snaked everywhere and there were tons of roaches. After I got them relocated, their children were healthier and their lives improved. One toddler grew up and sought my legal advice when he was buying his first house!
I hope that we are all inspired to work even harder these days to dedicate ourselves to help all those in need. Thank you again for honoring my work.”