Joseph Corcoran of Milton, a son of Irish immigrants, grew up in Dorchester in the 1930s and 1940s in a neighborhood mixed in income and ethnicity. He went to Boston College High School and on to a career developing mixed-income housing as founder of the Boston-based Corcoran Jennison Cos.
In 1986, Corcoran, working with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, got legislation passed for a change in federal tax credits, allowing him to turn Boston’s blighted Columbia Point housing project into the more-upscale Harbor Point on the Bay apartments.
Corcoran’s company to date is responsible for more than $4 billion in real estate developments nationwide, mostly in affordable housing. For his career-long efforts, Corcoran was scheduled to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps’ Embracing the Legacy Award at the JFK Library in Dorchesteron Friday.
“I’m honored,’’ Corcoran said. “Bobby Kennedy was always an inspiration to me.’’
Building housing that mixes residents of varying incomes and backgrounds is essential, and an ongoing trend, Corcoran said, one that will eventually do away with strictly low-income housing developments, which he said “are disasters.’’
“Companies like ours are converting projects all over the country,’’ he said. “In 10 years, you won’t see these projects with the same people with the same problems in the same buildings.’’
Corcoran created a nonprofit called the American City Coalition, that works to transform inner-city neighborhoods into viable communities, by expanding what “we did with public housing and apply[ing] it to an entire community. It was something similar that Robert F. Kennedy had started to do in New York.’’
For more than 20 years, Corcoran has also directly funded educational opportunities for city youth through scholarships to Boston College High School as well as Boston College, Simmons College, and Emmanuel College.
He keeps in touch with many scholarship recipients, he said, and hires some to work for him.
“I get a kick out of having them come back and visit,’’ he said. “I’m really proud to have played a part in helping them achieve a higher level of education so they could become productive members of society.’’
Paul E. Kandarian can be reached at pkandarian@aol.com.
