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.
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Grant Recipient
OPTIONS FOR YOUTH
For 20 years, OFY has worked to expand life opportunities for Chicago’s most vulnerable teens on the South and West Sides. Since 2017, our What’s Up with Manhood program has worked with LatinX and African American boys in Little Village to overcome the trauma of violence and toxic gender norms they encounter on the streets, at home, and in school. Through a long-term commitment, our Mentors work with over 100 high school boys each year to help them develop social emotional and life skills leading to healthy masculinity, responsible behavior and academic success. Ultimately, over 95% of our teens finish high school (the majority accepted to college) and demonstrate a greater appreciation for peaceful conflict resolution and gender equality.
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Grant Recipient
CHICAGO PERIOD PROJECT
Chicago Period Project is a 501c3 organization established in 2016 by Ashley Novoa and a group of moms she met online. Harnessed by frustration towards the election and defunding talks of Planned Parenthood, Ashley and team launched Chicago Period Project to help and support Chicago's marganized menstruators. Chicago Period Project is a community based organization whose mission is to help every menstruating person in Chicago experience their periods with dignity. Menstrual hygiene products for a period lifetime cost about $1700, our mission is to aid those living below the poverty line to experience healthy periods. In our almost 5 years of existence, we have donated over 600,000 period products throughout our most needed communities.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Foundation/Elevated Chicago
Elevated Chicago (EC) requests Project-Specific Support for a coalition of public, private & nonprofit organizations co-convened by the Office of Mayor Lightfoot & EC as the Equitable Transit-Oriented Development Working Group (ETOD WG). The coalition includes 30+ government agencies, BIPOC-led community & art organizations, developers, & policy experts. Its goal is to implement the 36 policies of Chicago’s first ETOD Policy Plan & advance several ETOD demonstration projects. This work seeks to prevent future TOD from displacing residents, small businesses, cultural institutions, and community organizations; encourage investment and build community wealth in BIPOC and low-income communities; & position Chicago as a national leader in ETOD.
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Grant Recipient
RENAISSANCE SOCIAL SERVICES, INC.
Renaissance Social Services, Inc., now in its 24th year of service, is in an aggressive program expansion mode. Over the past 2 years, the agency has implemented new housing, street outreach, and behavioral health services, and expanded its permanent supportive housing programming. Through all of this, the agency has seen a 148% increase in people served since 2018, to 2214 people served in 2020. Because of this expansion, the agency’s need for general operating support is significant. General operating support provides the financial flexibility to make up for gaps in restricted program funding, as well as provides the financial bandwidth needed to fully fund the administrative overhead that programming needs to effectively operate.
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Grant Recipient
Hire360
HIRE360 proposes its Training & Mentoring Together initiative to improve retention in living wage unionized apprenticeships for residents of under-represented communities. We will partner with leading industry partners to conduct case-based placement and retention support for apprentices at up to 25 organizations, serving up to 50 new apprentices in cohort and 1:1 models. The Training & Mentoring Together initiative enhances HIRE360’s ongoing pre-apprenticeship programming in the construction industry. We will dedicate 3.1 FTE staff to the initiative. New apprentices will generally be ages 18-29, 90% minority including 40% African American, 19% female, and 40% Latinx.
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Grant Recipient
La Casa Norte
LCN's mission is to serve youth and families confronting homelessness. We provide access to stable housing and deliver comprehensive services that act as a catalyst to transform lives and communities. Our Continuum of Care includes drop-in centers for youth, emergency shelters, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing. We recognize numerous barriers and needs affect that confronting homelessness, so are services include a Nutrition Center, with a food pantry and community café, in our new Community Center. This facility includes Howard Brown Health Center, to which we refer clients, making health care more accessible. Typically, clients and residents also utilize our Clothing Closet, where we distribute clothing and supplies.
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Grant Recipient
YOUNG INVINCIBLES
Beginning summer 2021, Young Invincibles will build a multi-pronged effort designed to educate young adults, with a focus on young adults of color, about the COVID vaccine in Chicagoland, developing key messaging that resonates with a broader young adult audience, and provide information about resources where they can make vaccination appointments, leveraging the existing young adult engagement programs and digital outreach and communications platforms that we’ve built over the last decade. Our goal is to ensure access to critical and trusted information about the vaccine for young people with a focus on communities of color and underserved, harder to reach populations so that every young person can make the best decision for themselves.
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Grant Recipient
MATTHEW HOUSE
Matthew House is a nonprofit organization serving the homeless for over 29 years with over 92% self-reporting they are Black or people of color. Services includes housing first, food and safety security, assess to mainstream benefits, staff and board is representative of the population served. MHC provides healthy food choices through our daytime services and to all permanent housing residents with food vouchers on or offsite as needed. MHC takes a case management evidence base approach making the experiencing of homelessness as brief as possible. MHC provides access daily to quality clothing; toilette and supplies for the homelessness supporting improve self-confident and ensuring well being of individuals. Annual budget is 2 million