Grants

Grant Recipient

Logan Square Neighborhood Association

Awarded: July 2025 Awarded Amount: $200,000

Our proposal will implement an innovative housing policy that will give many of our long-term Black and Latine community members a fighting chance to remain. We are part of a movement that is upending a harmful cycle of real estate development that has left Chicago as a segregated city of extremes; neighborhoods are either wealthy and exclusive, or they are disinvested and left behind. We rarely see diverse and mixed income communities, because developers earn the highest profits by honing in on one disinvested neighborhood at a time, flooding it with cash to flip it to the other extreme. So, whether in disinvested neighborhoods or communities with severe displacement pressure, Black and Latine households are missing out on the opportunity to build wealth and enjoy thriving, stable communities. Last fall, our housing stability pilot for the Latine neighborhoods of Logan Square, Avondale, Hermosa, and Humboldt Park (the Northwest Side Preservation Ordinance, NWHPO) was passed and took effect in February 2025. There are two key provisions within the ordinance; first, a demolition impact fee to discourage deconversions of multifamily Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH) into single family homes, and second, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). Our goal in the first year is to launch an implementation working group with three subcommittees, each with different stakeholders and devoted to different aspects of making the NWHPO a success: monitoring, education, and ecosystem development. The monitoring committee will be tasked with tracking the demolition permits within the ordinance zone and ensuring that the appropriate fees are enforced: we aim to show a reduction of deconversions of multi-family homes by at least 50% in the first year, while also leveraging any fees collected for construction of more affordable housing. This committee will be represented by Palenque LSNA in partnership with the Department of Housing, the Department of Buildings, and the seven Aldermen whose wards are within the preservation zone. The subsequent two committees will be dedicated to making TOPA a success. The education committee will be responsible for outreach to both tenants and landlords to inform them of the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities afforded to them by the ordinance. This will be done through regular canvassing by the Palenque LSNA Housing Justice Club as well as quarterly webinars in partnership with aldermen represented by the preservation zone as well as the Department of Housing. To that end, the education subcommittee will be represented by the alders as well as the Department of Housing. The final subcommittee, ecosystem development, will develop the necessary infrastructure to activate TOPA as a pathway for affordable homeownership and renting. We envision an alternative pathway for the housing ecosystem in our communities, but it will take more than the piece of legislation we passed last fall. To do it, we must coordinate the financial, legal, and logistical infrastructure to enable tenants to exercise their right to purchase their buildings and allow us to find partners to preserve them as affordable. In the last couple months we have had many meetings with partners with expertise in the financial, legal, and technical assistance needed to partner with tenants in TOPA acquisitions, and plan to invite the following organizations to join our ecosystem development subcommittee: Here to Stay Community Land Trust, Chicago Community Loan Fund, The Resurrection Project, The Community WEB, and the Department of Housing. We are excited to pilot a new and exciting path toward the preservation of affordability in our community, which we believe can be a model for the entire city. We have seen time and time again in Logan Square how buildings are sold, tenants evicted, and rents hiked up. But with your support, we can prove there is another way and continue to build out the alternative housing ecosystem our communities deserve. In summary, funding will allow us to kickstart implementation of our ordinance, providing the resources for tenant education, systems coordination, and advocacy to key decision makers: the Department of Housing, state, county, and local representatives, and key nonprofits that can assist in supporting tenants. While this work is all part of our comprehensive plan to implement the Northwest Side Preservation Ordinance, a $100,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust would specifically support the tenant organizing aspect of this work–providing education and resources for tenants and organizing them to engage in and activate TOPA. We will also partner with Southside Together, a Black-led community-based organization facing severe displacement pressure in a community that also has the TOPA provision, scaling our efforts and laying the groundwork for long-term systemic change.