However, a growing number of experienced community development organizations in Newark now compete with NCC for vital grant funding. Most of these organizations did not exist when NCC opened its first housing complex in 1975. Also, a 1993 ethnographic study by the New School University (published in 1997) indicates that although New Community's broad range of services benefited its tenants in numerous ways, it could not shield them from the negative forces plaguing the surrounding neighborhoods, i.e. crime, gang activity, substance abuse, unemployment, social isolation, insufficient education and other human capital, etc. Although community development corporations such as the New Community Corporation will continue to play a significant role in addressing the needs of low-income inner city residents, their promise as the "magic bullet" against the cycle of poverty is now in doubt.
