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
Center for Community Progress
Building on our current partnership with the Chicago Community Trust (Trust) in 2022-23 to pass vital legislation to reform the Illinois property tax system (2022-23 Reforms), the Center for Community Progress proposes to provide the following services to: (1) support the Trust and its community partners, including, but not limited to, Cook County and statewide stakeholders in their efforts to implement the 2022-23 Reforms; (2) assess and help to educate the Trust and its Partners on the potential impact of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Tyler v. Hennepin County (Tyler) on the Illinois Property Tax Code (PTC), including identifying the need for, and helping to assess, proposed legislative responses to address concerns regarding the Supreme Court decision; and (3) conduct research, identify, and design a range of potential legislative and policy solutions to enhance the ways in which Illinois counties, cities, and their partners can more equitably, effectively, and efficiently leverage the PTC to keep vulnerable families in their homes and to minimize the harms imposed by vacant, tax delinquent properties on neighborhoods across the Chicago region and throughout the state.
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Grant Recipient
NORTHWEST SIDE HOUSING CENTER
Northwest Center's request for the Early Childhood Support is an expansion of our Parents as Mentors Program (PMP). Our PMP is an essential tool to foster and advance the education of our students in Belmont Cragin schools. Our program, which is part of the Statewide Program run by the Parent Engagement Institute, focuses on helping and training parents (mostly Latinx mothers) to help fill persistent equity gaps in early childhood education through volunteering in early childhood classrooms. Our Parent Mentors offer our early childhood classrooms extra support through providing reading and math classroom support to students. Our trained parent volunteers do this through providing one-on-one and small group interactions with students for two hours per day, 5 days per week. Our Parent Mentors are not just an extra set of eyes and ears; they function as support for teachers committed to helping students who are behind in any subject as they provide one-on-one attention as well as group support to early childhood students in pre-k and kindergarten. Through research conducted during the 2021-2022 school year we have seen better attendance, family participation, and increased grades and test scores in reading, writing, and math as a result of our programs. Equally important is the development of confidence from the early childhood learners and parents because of the program. Finally, parents are empowered to carry out improvement campaigns in their schools and communities. We have a school that is organizing a campaign to fix the potholes in the street outside the school and have organized meetings with parents and community residents. They have also meet with their local Alderman and have a commitment to fix the street and they continue to fight for improvements in their community and school. We continue to work alongside these parents to ensure that they have sufficient support and resources to achieve their goals.
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Grant Recipient
Englewood Arts Collective
Englewood Arts Collective (EAC) seeks funding to enable planning, production and post communication campaign for the collaborative, communal and culturally affirming creative placemaking event that is EAC's Art Village within the 3rd annual Englewood Music Fest, happening on September 16th 2023 in Englewood. With Chicago Community Trust's support, EAC—a passionate group of experienced artists who all hail from and are actively connected to the Greater Englewood community— will be able to build collective power amongst the creative artist community in Englewood and Chicago at-large in tandem with local Englewood residents. This will happen via: - live art-making activities/stations throughout the village, led by both teaching artists from EAC and affiliated with EAC artists and residents in Englewood - culturally affirming activities and performances from reimaginative afro-futuristic collage making and footworking - resource and job opportunity sharing to the creative community within Englewood via artists and artist centric alliances in a curated artist-lounge area and more. The EAC Arts Village builds collective power individually by combining convening power in a safe and empowering space free to the public that brings residents from across the city to Englewood, using culture as a driver for bringing people not just into a community, but celebrating that community within and with residents of that community. THIS IS COMMUNITY PLACEMAKING.
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Grant Recipient
The Chicago Community Trust
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Grant Recipient
Logan Square Neighborhood Association
We are requesting $25,000 for our core general operating grant this year. We are undertaking placekeeping efforts so that the land we live on is for joy, health, and sustainability and facilitates political power for targeted Latinx and immigrant communities and fosters indigenous autonomy over the built environment; we are investing in the leadership development of our Latinx community members; and we are supporting immigrants to renew applications for DACA, I-90s, and other legal services.
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Grant Recipient
Viator House of Hospitality
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Grant Recipient
Association House of Chicago
Association House's Workforce Training programs provide participants with opportunities to gain the hard and soft skills needed to thrive in the workplace. Participants who complete training are connected with potential employers and placed in jobs that earn a living wage and benefits with opportunities for professional development. During and after training, participants are connected with other agency programs to mitigate barriers to training and employment - such as being connected to the agency's food pantry, assistance with public benefits applications, or substance use counseling. Current workforce training programs include Financial Careers Training, which prepares participants for careers in banking, and Kitchen Training, which prepares justice-involved participants for careers in restaurants/hospitality.
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Grant Recipient
Habitat for Humanity Chicago
Homeownership is a significant wealth-generating tool for families and a key factor in neighborhood health; however, one in ten Chicagoans live in substandard housing, and four in ten in declining neighborhoods. Chicago has the largest gap between White and Black homeowners among major U.S. cities—74.1% of White Chicagoans compared to only 39.1% of Black Chicagoans—a gap perpetuated by the disparity in loans made to Black communities. To respond to this disparity Habitat for Humanity Chicago (Habitat Chicago) will create a new loan product, considering income, the availability of vacant land, percentage of owner-occupied units, and the diversity of housing stock. These metrics ensure that we are providing homeownership opportunities to low-moderate income individuals in neighborhoods in need of single-family homes. Habitat Chicago will implement this new loan program in partnership with two HUD certified organizations: Oak Park Regional Housing Center (OPRHC) and Far South Community Development Corporation (FSCDC). Both organizations have a history of preparing homebuyers in our focus neighborhoods, while also fulfilling a service gap for Habitat Chicago- qualified buyers. Habitat Chicago was established through a consolidation of multiple Habitat for Humanity affiliates in 2002, and in 2011 adopted a strategy to focus on neighborhood health by providing affordable new home construction, homebuyer education, and neighborhood development grants in targeted communities. We build affordable homes for qualified buyers, equip them for homeownership with in-depth financial literacy education and equitable lending, and facilitate positive community action through neighborhood improvement projects that promote social cohesion. Habitat Chicago works in historically disinvested neighborhoods where exclusionary housing policies and inequitable development have limited wealth building for generations. In 2012, we began work in West Pullman on Chicago’s South Side. We broke ground in Greater Grand Crossing in spring 2021 and we are preparing to expand services to Austin on Chicago’s West Side. We intentionally serve neighborhoods with predominantly Black populations because regional prosperity depends on the health of these communities. In consideration of current and future needs of our focus neighborhoods, our FYE 2024-2028 Neighborhood Forward Strategic Plan identifies four areas of impact to include: strengthen the neighborhood housing market, connect the community, elevate the neighborhood appeal, and enhance the physical environment. This grant will allow us to strengthen the neighborhood housing market with our key tactics being to expand access to pre-purchase educational opportunities and financing to promote sustainable long-term homeownership through our Affordable Homeownership Program (AHP). AHP gives qualifying homebuyers access to a 30-year, zero percent interest mortgage to purchase newly constructed, affordable, energy efficient homes built by Habitat’s construction team, subcontractors, volunteers, and homebuyers. Qualified homebuyers receive extensive support from application to closing, attend classes and guidance meetings, and help build their homes. In FY24, we plan to complete eight new homes, and twelve more in FY25. Further, we recently piloted a collaborative workforce development initiative at our construction sites with several local workforce development programs (Revolution Workshop, Chicago Women in Trade, Rebuilding Exchange, etc) that will allow us to increase our construction delivery over time. Funds acquired by this grant will provide Habitat Chicago with the opportunity to expand an existing project to include more structured homebuyer preparation and more flexible underwriting guidelines than our current loan product. Additionally, this proposal includes the creation of a special purpose financing program to provide greater access and to specifically target Austin and West Pullman.