Paving the Path to Homeownership for Housing Choice Voucher Holders
Since the mid-20th century, homeownership has been one of the most important vehicles for building wealth in the United States. According to research from the…
Grants
Featured
Our Grantmaking Strategy
For more than 100 years, The Chicago Community Trust has convened, supported, funded, and accelerated the work of community members and changemakers committed to strengthening the Chicago region. From building up our civic infrastructure to spearheading our response to the Great Recession, the Trust has brought our community together to face pressing challenges and seize our greatest opportunities.
-
Grant Recipient
Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation
CAASE seeks funding for its Policy department, which leads our pursuit of public policies and systems change that advance the power and safety of communities impacted by sexual harm in Chicago and IL (disproportionately Black and Latinx). CAASE has expertise in advocacy at the state and local level; we’ve led passage of 6 laws that transformed IL’s response to sex trafficking, and have improved local criminal justice and social responses to rape. In 2021, we achieved increased safety for student survivors of harm via state legislation, in addition to passing 4 more laws to increase survivor safety and justice. Chicago routinely underinvests in the safety of Black and Latinx survivors of sexual harm, but CAASE centers this population in our work, and is dedicated to helping them achieve justice.
-
Grant Recipient
Chicago Refugee Coalition
The work of Chicago Refugee Coalition is well-aligned with Chicago Community Trust’s commitment to addressing the critical needs of individuals and families in order to close the racial and wealth gap that undergird economic inequity in our region. Our two core programs, Food Banking, and the Refugee Resource Center, fall under CCT’s strategic priorities of food insecurity, supporting immigrants and refugees, and youth exposed to trauma.
-
Grant Recipient
World Relief Corp of National Association of Evangelicals
A $25,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust (CCT) will help to provide vital trauma-informed services in family case management, mental health, and youth programming to Afghan evacuees and other refugees rebuilding their lives in the United States after trauma and displacement. Additionally, this grant will support growth in staff diversity to increase the effectiveness of World Relief Chicagoland’s (WRC’s) programs and the organization’s delivery of equitable and culturally-informed services to immigrant and refugee communities throughout Chicagoland.
-
Grant Recipient
Englewood Connect LLC
N/A
-
Grant Recipient
Grow Greater Englewood
The Englewood Village Farms focuses on activating the farms near the Englewood Nature Trail also utilizing organizing, advocacy, business planning, and implementation strategies. By focusing on acquiring more land, for farmers, and technical support and supplies for farmers in the Englewood Village Farms
-
Grant Recipient
ARAB AMERICAN FAMILY SERVICES
AAFS is a culturally grounded multi service agency promoting access to a range of supports to Arab American and other immigrant low income families in the southwestern suburbs. Our services include intensive case management, domestic violence, senior meals and services, immigrant legal services and citizenship, behavioral health and community health services. We have been a critical entity in COVID-19 response and recovery in the southwestern suburbs, leveraging more than $7 million in COVID-19 health resources and food, cash, and housing assistance. In addition to responding to the pandemic challenges, AAFS has been mobilized to provide services to the recent Afghan refugees arriving in the Chicago area. This is a new service line for AAFS and these individuals and families require a tremendous amount of support, from the basic food, health and shelter, to navigating U.S. education, health, legal, and employment systems, to the much more in-depth trauma counseling and overall support for integration. We are requesting overall general operating funding to support our expansion in this area.
-
Grant Recipient
Health and Medicine Policy Research Group
We seek support for our work to advance the development of a Strategic Action Plan for Aging Equity for Illinois that builds on our partnership with the IDOA to develop their State Plan on Aging. We have been and will continue to engage and organize with communities to develop and support a comprehensive vision for an age-friendly city and state that focuses on policy and systems change emerging from lessons and gaps and responds to health inequities that were illuminated by COVID-19. We’re conducting outreach and building relationships with groups that often do not engage directly with the aging sector or aging organizations. We are conducting outreach and have hosted roundtables specifically to include Black-, Latinx-, and Asian-led organizations in Chicago, Cook County, and throughout the state to become engaged in this movement. Fueled by structural racism coupled with class and gender inequities, health inequities and a variety of injustices harm people of color and reduce quality of life and life expectancy. So, countering ageism includes the struggle against these other inequities concurrently.. This project seeks to build power for health and aging equity at a time when we are experiencing historic growth in the older adult population. Not only do racism and ageism combine with other structural inequities to cause health inequities, service gaps for seniors cost lives and reduce quality of life, especially in Black and Latinx communities.
-
Grant Recipient
Southland Juvenile Justice Council
The Cook County Southland Juvenile Justice Council (SJJC) Violence Prevention, Reduction & Restorative Program’s sustainability plan, is designed to address the pressing need for better education, thriving community resources, and inclusive community support in South Suburban Cook County. The Cook County Southland Juvenile Justice Council (SJJC) deems youth that have experienced a series of traumas from violence, disinvestment, pandemic, economic crisis, etc.; are in dire need of early interventions which are imperative and critical components to intervene and prevent youth and their families from entering into a place where they act out their traumas. Referring youth and families into therapeutic programs will foster sustainable youth development programs which are imperative to break the cycle before it begins.