Enlarge McCreesh Place resident Mike Jones playing Front Porch Grant-funded bingo.

Posted: May 1st, 2011 Greg Lacour

It’s been eight years since McCreesh Place, a 63-unit apartment complex for formerly homeless disabled men, opened on North Davidson Street in the Villa Heights neighborhood. Since then, the center’s staff and residents have endeared themselves to their once-skeptical neighbors by being good neighbors themselves: helping to keep nearby Cordelia Park clean and participating in the neighborhood’s crime prevention programs.

They also seek out other, more lighthearted ways to strengthen their bond with the community--and a $2,500 Foundation For The Carolinas Front Porch Grant recently helped.

The grant paid for a Bingo Night at McCreesh Place on April 29, and the whole neighborhood was invited--with catered barbecue, bingo cards and, for the winners, Wal-Mart and Harris Teeter gift cards that are “like gold” to the men living there, said Michael Boldt, the center’s property and community relations manager.

It’s the third Front Porch Grant award for McCreesh Place, named for the late Rev. Gene McCreesh, S.J., a priest from nearby St. Peter’s Catholic Church who co-founded the low-income housing nonprofit that owns the center.

“We like to open our doors to Villa Heights, North Charlotte and Belmont and just try to be better neighbors,” Boldt said. “We’re not just a facility.”

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