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.
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Grant Recipient
Revolution Institute
The vision of Revolution Institute (“RI”) is to advance social and economic equity and peaceful communities for ALL people. The mission of RI is to liberate the creative potential of African American and Latinx communities through sustainable, future-oriented work, entrepreneurship, and value-aligned collaboration. RI’s proof-of-concept is its affiliate organization, Revolution Workshop, which is a sector-driven construction job training program and correlated social enterprise. Since its founding in 2018, Revolution Workshop’s job training program has graduated and credentialed 145 community members in the construction trades. Revolution Workshop’s social enterprise produces custom woodworking and carpentry pieces. In 2023 and beyond, RI aims to launch additional affiliate organizations, each of which will consist of a new vocational training program and associated social enterprise. Affiliates will operate in the field of advanced manufacturing. Our objective is to do this in a manner that furthers our value of worker-owned cooperatives, the ethic of sharing, human-centered design, and shared work and responsibility. Upon maturation, RI will launch, Revolution Green (“RG”), an independent worker cooperative. We anticipate that affiliates will incubate as cooperatives for one year or less before transitioning into worker-ownership. We seek funding to enhance our capacity and expand our team. Specifically, the $25,000 delivered through this Grant would be put towards recruitment of a Co-op Developer and Manager. This role will align the human, intellectual, and financial resources required to launch small-scale manufacturing facility that operates as a worker-owned cooperative. We specifically seek a professional who is versed in the cooperative ethos, and who has direct experience working in the manufacturing sector.
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Grant Recipient
CIVIC CONSULTING ALLIANCE
Civic Consulting Alliance requests general operating support from the Chicago Community Trust to advance our mission – to make the Chicago region a great place for everyone to live in and work.
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Grant Recipient
City of Evanston - Department of Public Works
In August of 2019, the Evanston City Council passed a resolution allocating ten million dollars of the City's Municipal Cannabis Retailer's Occupation Tax for local reparations. The Restorative Housing Program is the first initiative developed by the Reparations Committee that acknowledges the historical harm caused to Black/African-American Evanston residents due to discriminatory housing policies and practices and inaction by the City. The goals of the program are to preserve, stabilize, and increase homeownership, which builds intergenerational wealth among Evanston’s Black residents. Eligible individuals may receive up to $25,000 to use towards homeownership, home improvement, or mortgage assistance. To administer the program, the City contracted with Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH), a HUD-certified nonprofit organization in Illinois that develops affordable housing and provides housing-related services. Though CPAH's involvement in the Reparations Program is significant, the organization only has the capacity to manage ONLY one home improvement project per month due to having other contracting opportunities and not enough capacity. Most Reparations recipients thus far are electing to apply their reparations funds toward improving their homes and are choosing to have the construction managed by CPAH. Therefore to increase the pace of funding distribution, the City is seeking to hire additional support to assist with the construction project management. The additional staff support would be providing construction management services directly to the reparations recipients who have chosen to improve their homes as their reparations benefit. The staff support will oversee the process for both homeowner-managed construction projects and City-managed construction projects. In addition to the homeowner, the staff support will oversee the procurement and work of the prime contractor, subcontractors, as well as architectural services as needed to improve the residences of the beneficiaries of the Local Reparations Restorative Housing program.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Trust
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Grant Recipient
Legacy Disciple
Legacy Disciple has created our Hood Heroes Leaders in Training (LIT) initiative to encourage, equip and empower young people between the ages of 16-24 to be the leaders in their community.
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Grant Recipient
Genesis Cleaning Cooperative
This request is for general operating funds that will support the growth of our worker owned cooperative, Genesis Cleaning Cooperative. We provide cleaning and sanitizing services to the Chicagoland area and surrounding suburbs, specializing in cleaning large spaces, public organizations and private institutions. We are a strong and unique cooperative business in the cleaning industry because we are committed to performing excellent cleaning services while providing dignified wages to our members and are based in the values of cooperation, collectivism and prosperity. Our vision is that women in Chicago will have a place to work where they are valued, supported and are paid above minimum wage. We practice democratic decision making practices, with a commitment to equality, equity; and a focus on social and economic responsibility. Currently we are 3 worker owners equally sharing the workload of marketing, managing clients, performing cleaning services and running our business. Last year we had 10 clients and earned about $45,000. While this was an increase from the previous year, it was not enough to sustain us and we had to also work for other people and were not able to grow our business. We have maintained a website and managed our client relationships using jobber and a CRM. We have the need for a proper computer, a good printer, an internet service and marketing training and software. With a proper computer and internet we will not have to conduct business on our phones and a hotspot, and will be able to professionally manage our client relationships and carry out our marketing efforts. A printer would assist in printing marketing materials and client contracts. The training and software will help us meet our goals of expanding our client base and fully being able to sustain ourselves through our cooperative. We also aim to expand and recruit new members this year to increase our capacity and benefit more women with good quality jobs with dignity and respect.
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Grant Recipient
Champs Male Mentoring Program - Chirise
In applying for the Elevate Community Leaders Grant, we are seeking funding to support both the end of our school-year programming and the execution of high-level summer programming. CHAMPS is committed to leadership development, to reducing violence in the city and to closing the racial wealth gap over time. The 3E’s of our programming, Education, Empowerment and Exposure, are pathways toward accomplishing those three goals, and summer is a critical time for creating exposure opportunities for youth, either through employment or trips. From September through June CHAMPS partners with schools to provide social-emotional programming and mentorship during the school day, and also provides robust extra-curricular programming on Saturdays. It is important to end these programs on positive notes with recognition ceremonies and or special exposure experiences such as camping trips, trips around our city, or even trips to sporting events. The Saturday programming naturally transitions into summer programming at the start of July, when we host a 6-8 week program for young men. We meet 3 times per week for approximately four hours each day. We work with funding partners to ensure youth receive a stipend for their involvement, and we also work to employ older teens who can help lead programming and gain work experience and job readiness development. The summer program is critical to address the goals state above of violence reduction, leadership development and closing the wealth gap. Offering stipends and paid internships is an essential part of recruiting and maintaining strong participation, otherwise many youth will opt for other employment opportunities. By participating in CHAMPS they get opportunities to lead program and develop themselves, they participate in workshops focused on financial education, job readiness and personal development and they get opportunities to travel, in addition to making new friends and having fun in a safe environment. Throughout the spring, summer and fall CHAMPS also hosts a number of open community events. The largest of these is the CHAMPS Born 2 Win Conference, a 1-day event that hosts more than 400 young men, mentors and community leaders for a day of empowerment, speakers and workshops. The Conference has also grown to include a basketball tournament as another way to engage the youth in the summer. CHAMPS hosts additional community basketball tournaments throughout the summer in local parks and gyms. With this grant CHAMPS plans to increase the size of our current tournaments, and add more. CHAMPS also partners with other community organizations for events like the Juneteenth Celebration and End of Summer Bash in Greater Grand Crossing. With this grant, in addition to other funding sources, CHAMPS will be able to: Plan weekly exposure opportunities for youth to leave their communities and have both fun and educational experiences. Last year trips ranged from amusement parks to STEM fairs to site visit at local companies. Support sending a cohort of young men to Camp Trident in either Virginia or Colorado. This is a youth leadership camp run by former SEALs that our students attend annually. Hire 2 summer interns (usually aged 20-24)to lead and plan summer programming Hire a team of young adults (aged 16-19) to participate in and lead summer programming Provide stipends for youth aged 13-16 for consistent participation Secure passports for all participants so that as future international opportunities arise students are eligible for participation
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Foundation/Elevated Chicago
In partnership with the City of Chicago and Mayor's Office, and in collaboration with the ETOD WG, Elevated Chicago supported the development and subsequent adoption of the Connected Communities ordinance. A large part of this collaborative work was creating the messaging and communications campaign to advance understanding of ETOD, the challenges of the current zoning policies, and the value of the updated ordinance to ensure more equitable future development around our transit assets and related commercial corridors.