(Nominated by NPC)
Rev. Dr. Carmen Porco has served over 50 years as the CEO and Executive Director of Housing Ministries of Wisconsin, and the President of CPDS, Inc. In these years, Carmen has founded, developed and directed a unique model of community management, which integrates housing and services into a single delivery system. Carmen built Community Learning Centers onsite in each of the six low-income communities he managed, challenging the systems and institutions toward greater social justice. These communities are demonstrating what low-income communities, and those within them, are truly capable of achieving when given access to resources and services.
Carmen’s model has been named the “Wisconsin Anti-Poverty Model” and has stood the test of time. His innovation and leadership have made communities in Madison and Milwaukee better places and changed the way individuals think about property management, communities faced with poverty, and the potential that exists within them.
Carmen has been honored with awards from a variety of institutions, including the recent Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award from the City of Madison and Dane County, and the Badger Pioneer award from Sustain Dane. He was presented with the Educator of the Year award by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. He was given the Champion of Change Award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and awarded four Hammer Awards by former Vice President Al Gore. There is a Carmen Porco Chair in the Center of Business and Poverty at Oxford University. He also has had a fund established in his name, the Carmen Porco Justice Award, established by the Wisconsin Council of Churches.
Carmen Porco has passionately given his time and heart to communities and individuals for more than 50 years. Two of those communities are on the Northside of Madison. Carmen made his first home in one of those communities in Madison long ago. He planted and cared for many of the trees that are now fully grown onsite, the same trees that have lit up the Northside over dark winter months. It was with that same care that he developed his model — hired residents for all the jobs it provided, developed a scholarship fund for residents, and created access for the individuals to utilize resources so they may unleash the potential that was within them all along, to shine.
