i knew that i was going to come to work and it's the only place i did we would have never been able to advance our own education and improve our quality of life for our family if if we hadn't lived here and sixty seven a group of community leaders founded unity housing aspiring to balance housing opportunities in this town a dedication held here recently honoring the life's work of the men who remain central to this group course with for ted viles on behalf of ted viles family we've celebrated as an organization many of the students here at p c v who have won scholarships so we've had the opportunity to sell very things here so it seems natural to have a family gathering and again i hope you all feel like this is what what you're experiencing you know through through the efforts of ted and his and his colleagues and staff over the years the p c h family has grown and prospered just like your family has we now provide homes for almost five hundred households in princeton we thought we fulfill a need and need that continues to grow we have over twelve hundred applications or folks waiting on our waiting list so there's continues to be a need for affordable housing it doesn't just stop it continues to be there and some of you may not realize that new jersey is the fifth most expensive state to rent a two bedroom apartment and it's in the nation so that's just a fact of life unfortunately again thank you all for being here and like to now introduce john borden one of our founding board members high to believe it's been forty eight years since priest the age was founded and it's true that i was one of the founding members and so i but asked to speak about what happened in the beginning but let me ask you something how many of you remember what happened forty eight years ago but here's what i do recall i was a representative of the princeton quaker meeting as many of you know p c s was founded by several faith based organizations as well as major institutions like princeton university the seminary and the institute for advanced study and i became friends of some of the most effective community leaders in princeton ted vile jim floyd and bud vivian among them regretfully i was not one of the people that helped get the princeton community village underway so my memory is hazy on these early years but here is something i did realized with ted vile the others had accomplished and made a moderate income residents the high rise holly house offers single bedroom apartments while townhouses have larger accommodations for families we came here in july of two point two thousand and nine so that was a plus for us to live in this community as my mother says there is a lot a sense of community and those a lot of friends here and i was really close like where i live before there was nobody there there wasn't any friends is a lot more secluded and i'm going to miss the sense of community here with your friends just have fun here and meet a lot of different people from different like backgrounds and you get to learn about their experiences here and going through it at the hands of house is just really fun just when we moved here we weren't really one hundred percent aware of all the opportunities that came with living here  very expensive mortgage and just the general cost of living and frank and i both were born and raised in elizabeth and come from families with limited means so our girls were in the school system and we wanted to keep them in the school system we're very happy with their their pass and frank taught at the time in montgomery so since we've been here really there's been a lot of opportunities for the girls with scholarship sister also received she received at the naama and words this year and she's also attending records she'll be a junior and we're we're also both very grateful and actually be able to stay on campus this year because of all of people are so blessed to have a place like this i feel very blessed to be here and i was so excited when i saw so many chinese and other people here very international i just love that i'm was living in florida and in a mobile home senior park and i had gotten my physical and self had gotten to a point where i really couldn't live alone like that anymore and so i talked to my daughter trace of who lives in lawrenceville and she found this place i have three hours one day a week and i have the food program which i really like i go at noon and i've made it my main meal of the day so now i just have to have fix up breakfast and a lunch in the evening and i think fifty percent of the whole program is the social isolation i love the people we become a family in there to my governess i think five feet by four feet harriet brian community garden offering residents their own garden plots with wheelchair access ability it's all parcelled out and everybody has a pot i have radishes and tomatoes and onions and peppers a two hundred eighty unit affordable family project located off cherry valley road and inclusionary development half the units are affordable housing the remainder are market rate units when i came my wife and i was we didn't have to live there forever we also had to do well for ourselves and move beyond the low income level and start hitting that middle income level as i'm leaving the american dream so we started working  well now is my great great pleasure to introduce to all of you leslie ose lee who was ted viles daughter and she will speak a little bit to my father would be the first to say that he should not be singled out for this honor in fact he would be embarrassed by the fuss being made partly because he always was a humble man but more than that because he knew how hard everyone at p c h worked and appreciated what each person contributed to the work of this organization when you see what this hard work has accomplished it shows that you can make a real and lasting difference in the world even if you're not a celebrity or a wealthy donor so on behalf of all of us including my father i will say thank you thank you for this recognition of him and thank you especially for continuing to do justice and to solve a real need in this community