TAP began its work in a storefront on Hutton Street. Working at first as a volunteer organization, TAP built parks, ran summer art programs, and helped battle exploiting landlords and proposals for ill-conceived highways. With the advent of paid staff in 1972 TAP continued to develop its professional and architectural skills for the use of non-profit agencies, for low and middle-income clients, and in public policy battles on behalf of residents of the inner city.

Now, in 2005 TAP employs ten full-time employees, as well as volunteers and interns from local colleges and area professionals. Four of TAP’s staff members are licensed architects. TAP’s work each year includes well over one hundred projects throughout the Capital District of New York State. Our clients serve victims of domestic violence and racial bias, HIV-positive people, the homeless and physically challenged, economically disadvantaged families. We work directly with neighborhood associations, art groups, municipalities and veterans agencies. Though our roots are in Troy, our influence and services extend to an area encompassing the Capital District and beyond.

TAP receives partial funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, and donations of funds, materials and services from friends of the program.

TAP began as an experiment in community service to provide technical assistance by students and volunteers to those who needed it and could not afford it. We have expanded to become an integral part of the non-profit housing delivery system in the region. Now thirty four years later, TAP remains unorthodox, passionate, idealistic and persistent- an effective ally to those in need.