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
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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. Today, that means confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
NORTHWEST SIDE CDC
Northwest Side CDC (NWSCDC) will work with partner agencies, Foundation of Little Village and Onward House, to support newly established and emerging businesses through a series of workshops, trainings, professional service support, and one-on-one advising sessions. Program participants will take part in a several-month cohort. NWSCDC, Foundation of Little Village, and Onward House will use internal and external resources to provide technical expertise to businesses in several subjects, including technology, capital access, and social media support. The goal of this collective work is to increase access to capital for BIPOC business owners while supporting resiliency building and increasing income.
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Grant Recipient
Small Business Advocacy Council
During the current grant term, the SBAC engaged in lobbying activities focused on revitalizing commercial corridors and reducing vacancies in disinvested communities by reducing red tape and streamlining processes for small and local businesses. The SBAC has also engaged in lobbying activities, which have resulted in the enactment of legislation that significantly increases incentives for businesses that hire formerly incarcerated individuals. The SBAC's lobbying activities involving the reduction of red tape and transiting vacant properties into small businesses have included direct engagement with Mayor Johnson’s office, alders, policymakers, and other elected officials. These activities include securing the endorsement of over 30 chambers and place-based organizations on a robust package of reforms that will reduce significant red tape for small and local businesses. These efforts have also procured the endorsement of a growing number of alders on the package. The SBAC has led a grassroots campaign focused on galvanizing stakeholders through coalition meetings, email communications, attendance at live events and a robust social media engagement. As stated above, during the current grant term, the SBAC lobbied to increase incentives for small businesses that hire formerly incarcerated individuals. The SBAC engaged policymakers on this issue in Springfield and made this one of the cornerstones of its legislative agenda. This effort led to tangible results and a victory in Springfield, as the General Assembly passed, and Governor Pritzker signed, legislation significantly increasing the tax credits that businesses can receive for hiring formerly incarcerated individuals. These tax credits will help formerly incarcerated individuals transition into the workforce and help with the costs of on-the-job training. Efforts will now include working with stakeholders and policymakers in Black and Latine communities to amplify this win so small and local businesses are aware of these increased tax credits and can utilize them to hire formerly incarcerated individuals in their neighborhoods. The present application continues to request funds for lobbying activities to enact the reforms set forth in the package to reduce red tape and streamline processes. The SBAC has worked closely with local chambers and place-based organizations, and other thought leaders, to develop this package. This package of reforms has evolved based on stakeholder input, and in this current grant cycle, the SBAC will continue lobbying to streamline the process and reduce the costs of obtaining a special use permit. The SBAC will lobby to improve the city inspection process to increase consistency and timeliness. Lobbying activities will also focus on improving the process for the renewal of permits and ensuring that debt checks are timely and accurate and that far-removed debts do not stymie the efforts of entrepreneurs to obtain business licenses for an unreasonable period in disinvested communities. Costly and overly burdensome red tape has a profound impact on Black and Latine entrepreneurs and communities, and addressing these systemic barriers will foster economic development and revitalize disinvested communities. This application requests funds to lobby for better communication between city staff and small businesses, especially in Black and Latine communities, so entrepreneurs receive consistent messages that allow them to open and operate their businesses. These funds will also be used to monitor and remain current on laws and ordinances that will have detrimental or unintended consequences on small businesses in disinvested communities so advocates can be mobilized and empowered to engage on these issues. This application seeks funds to be used for direct lobbying and grassroots activities, such as hosting forums, meetings, roundtables, social media and PR campaigns, and action calls.
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Grant Recipient
Center for Community Self-Help
The Center for Community Self-Help (Self-Help), in partnership with The Resurrection Project (TRP), the Hope Center Foundation of Chicago (HCF), and Lawndale Christian Development Corporation (LCDC), requests $320,000 to support our proposal to Advance Sustainable Homeownership in the greater Chicago area. Our proposal seeks to directly complement and enhance the work of the Reclaiming Chicago Initiative (RCI), a campaign organized by United Power for Action and Justice to help families in the South and West Sides of Chicago build wealth through homeownership. While not new to RCI, for our second year, we have invited HCF to join our partnership, which will allow us to broaden our footprint into Roseland and expand access to our financial solutions. For this iteration, the collaborative will build on the learnings of our first year of funding and support the RCI vision by providing counseling services to individuals across the home purchase spectrum, utilizing referral channels to connect potential homebuyers to affordable financing solutions, forging new relationships to increase homebuyer DPA access, and piloting an expanded reserve program to protect new owners against unforeseen financial emergencies that may threaten their new ownership status. Through these efforts, we will work towards our long-term Reclaiming Chicago goal of increasing and sustaining the number of Black and Latino homeowners across the South and West Sides of Chicago.
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Grant Recipient
Gertie Enterprises, LLC
Gertie, a civic and cultural agency expanding the impact of Chicago's creative economy, will present Next Stop: Chicago, a series of public art activations by community-based organizations across the city addressing infrastructure inequity in Chicago, timed to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from August 19-22. Gertie has awarded more than $400,000 in grants to seven community-led projects along the Chicago Transit Authority’s Green Line (which connects Chicago’s West and South Side to the convention locations and downtown) examining the nature of infrastructure and its importance for historically marginalized communities, especially post-pandemic. Next Stop: Chicago showcases the ways in which the arts, alongside the beautification of and investment in infrastructure, drives economic growth. The initiative’s public activations aim to call attention to organizations whose placemaking work is revitalizing gathering spaces outside of work and home (known as “third spaces”) post-pandemi, and represent the vital contributions creative small businesses make by employing artists that keep communities vibrant. Vic Mensa, rapper and actor on The Chi, will host a series of short videos on the project that will live on Gertie’s social channels and website. Gertie organized Next Stop: Chicago to amplify artist and community voices spanning Chicago’s vast network of neighborhoods at this historic political moment, when there is a global spotlight on the city. Next Stop: Chicago is designed to highlight the important intersection of infrastructure and the arts through installations and programs that address resource allocation and infrastructure inequity—an issue that has disproportionately impacted Black and brown people in this city. This problem won’t be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach, and requires collaboration and creativity across sectors to ensure our city thrives at its highest level.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness
Since 1980, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) has built power and made change through community education, strategic campaigns, and policy initiatives that target root causes of homelessness across Chicago and Illinois. Though our focus is developing permanent solutions to homelessness, as an organization that centers people with lived experience in our advocacy, we must also consider the pressing challenges that they face. Because of this, direct service comprises a part of CCH’s work, including free legal assistance that connects people impacted by poverty to housing, public benefits, and other critical resources. Generous funding from The Chicago Community Trust would support the work of CCH’s Law Project, the only legal aid program in Illinois solely focused on the needs of people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Many Law Project activities are aligned with this RFP including providing legal services to prevent eviction and housing discrimination; facilitating access to safe, temporary living arrangements; providing access to public benefits related to housing, utility expenses, and other income supports; and supporting people living doubled up so that they may secure housing of their own. Goals for FY25 include: --By providing legal aid and representation to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, Law Project staff will help clients access emergency shelter, secure public benefits and income supports, and obtain and maintain permanent housing. CCH will also support legal needs around education, family law, sealing/expunging criminal records, consumer rights, and obtaining identification documents. --Extensive outreach at shelters, drop-in centers, and outdoor locations will ensure that individuals and families with pressing legal needs receive the support they need to address current challenges. --Through professional trainings and webinars, more service providers, educators, public officials, and attorneys will be knowledgeable about legal rights, options, and resources for people experiencing homelessness.
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Grant Recipient
CITY COLLEGES OF CHICAGO FOUNDATION
There is a strong interest among incumbent workers in Chicago’s major healthcare employers (Rush University Medical Center, Northwestern Medicine, Advocate Aurora Health among others) to move from entry level roles such as patient care technicians (PCTs) into nursing careers. For example, in a 2023 Workforce & Organizational Research Center (WORC) survey, although respondents reported generally high levels of job satisfaction, most reported larger career aspirations and many viewed their current roles as stepping stones to roles that offer greater earning potential than their current roles. This interest could provide a sizable growth in personal income – from a starting wage of $21.86 for PCTs to an average of $39.09/hour for registered nurses (RN) – while simultaneously strengthening a key Chicago economic sector. While a number of workforce development initiatives seek to engage incumbent workers in upskilling, these initiatives too often do not optimize student success by identifying, assessing, and addressing upfront the intersectional needs of students, employers, and educational institutions. This City Colleges’ project, in collaboration with healthcare industry workforce organizations and local employers, seeks to assess and address these student success factors associated by implementing a Patient Care Technician (PCT) to Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) Pathway Program. Completion will allow individuals to take the National Council for Licensure Exam for Registered Nurses and move into an RN role. The City Colleges of Chicago Foundation requests $200,000 in grant funds from the Chicago Community Trust to support the initial phases of development and recruitment for a PCT to ADN Pathway Program, establishing a solid foundation for launch. Specifically, funding will support the City Colleges of Chicago and its healthcare partners with tools to identify, screen, and build a support system for PCTs who wish to enroll in the PCT to ADN Pathway Program and achieve greater household wealth. This is a tangible, achievable way that we can collaboratively increase the financial security and health of incumbent workers primarily from Black and Latinx communities.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Women in Trades
Systemic barriers have historically excluded women and people of color—particularly Black individuals—from the construction trades workforce. In Cook County, less than 5 percent of trades apprentices are women, and only 6 percent of Chicago construction workers are African Americans. The Chicago Construction Workforce Equity Coalition, led by Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), has drafted comprehensive ordinance language in collaboration with tradeswomen of color, minority contractor organizations, and other industry stakeholders. The Chicago Construction Workforce Equity Ordinance takes concrete action to improve access to and retention in the construction trades for underrepresented groups, requires the City to provide the staffing and resources to implement and enforce new requirements, brings all industry stakeholders together to assist with oversight, and requires public reporting of data to provide accountability on performance. Chicago Women in Trades recently succeeded in introducing and getting HB 3400 passed by the Illinois State Legislature in May 2023 to increase state data transparency, thanks to sponsors, Representative Will Davis, Leader Mattie Hunter, and Representative Will Guzzardi. This bill became state law and requires the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) to issue quarterly reports by project and by contractor on the workforce of public works projects that include race, ethnicity, and gender information by trade, skill level, and hours worked—providing workforce data transparency that will lead to accountability to under-represented communities. Fueled by state and federal spending on infrastructure, large scale local projects, and investment in pre-apprenticeship training, opportunity has never been greater to make progress for people of color and women in the trades than it is right now. Now is the time to leverage this legislative victory, momentum, and opportune season so that the City of Chicago provides solutions to racial and gender inequities in the construction trades. Chicago Community Trust funding will alleviate the strain on the coalition’s existing resources and capacity by helping fund lobbying and advocacy efforts as well as marketing and public education initiatives.
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Grant Recipient
North Lawndale Employment Network
North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) is a place-based, nonprofit workforce development organization whose mission is to increase the earnings potential of the North Lawndale community of Chicago through innovative employment initiatives that lead to economic advancement and an improved quality of life. NLEN is more than a workforce development agency; we are a social justice organization that uses innovative employment initiatives to undo the devastating impact of historic disinvestment on Chicago’s West Side. Through our neighborhood-based employment initiatives that address the root causes of poverty, NLEN works to bridge the racial wealth gap and serves as a driving force for social equity and racial healing on Chicago’s West Side. NLEN is committed to solving the problem of unemployment among men and women with criminal backgrounds and individuals impacted by poverty and gun violence. As an experienced practitioner and trusted subject matter expert, NLEN collaborates with community stakeholders to lift families and communities out of poverty to reduce gun violence and recidivism. Our 24-year history of successfully managing placed-based initiatives that deliver employment and supportive services to residents recovering from the effects of mass incarceration and chronic exposure to gun violence has proven to interrupt the cycle of violence. NLEN provides integrated job readiness, employment training, career pathway development, job placement, and retention services – with wraparound and barrier reducing support – that begin with a comprehensive orientation and enrollment process, participant assessment, and individual employment plans (IEPs); and continues with case management, supportive service coordination, and occupational skills training. Our unique programming leads to upskilling and certifications for participants, ensuring program graduates are equipped with the hard and soft employment skills, along with industry-recognized credentials, which lead to family-sustaining jobs, long-term employment success, and economic advancement. NLEN assesses each program participant to customize the wraparound support needed to address barriers to program participation, training, and sustained employment. Supportive services include healthcare and mental health support, financial coaching and services, housing and homeless prevention services, civil legal aid, transportation, work uniforms, tools, supplies, tuition, books, and digital literacy training. As a core component of our job readiness program, occupational skills training, and job placement services, NLEN’s Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) contributes to the bundled support of program participants, supporting their financial wellness and economic advancement. The FOC team includes certified financial wellness coaches that lead the intake and assessment process; work closely with our Client Solution Specialists to coordinate wraparound supports; provide one-on-one coaching to establish financial goals and create and implement financials plans; and provide financial and digital literacy workshops.