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. Today, that means confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
Noble Network of Charter Schools
The Noble Network of Charter Schools’ Two-year Pathway Support will be staffed by a Career Pathways Manager and five near-peer mentors. They will be tasked with supporting our alumni with college matriculation and persistence and will receive continuous training dedicated to proactive outreach and advising approaches. The first cohort will consist of graduates from the Class of 2021 who will be attending City Colleges of Chicago (CCC). This Career Pathways Manager and near-peer mentors will work in partnership with the community colleges to provide students with sufficient support focused on financial aid, course enrollment, academic coaching, social-emotional wellbeing, and targeted career coaching.
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Grant Recipient
COMMUNITY HEALTH NFP
CommunityHealth’s Increasing Immunity for the Uninsured program is focused on vaccinating the low-income, uninsured, and largely immigrant population CommunityHealth serves. CommunityHealth will do this by continuing to vaccinate patients in their trusted health care clinic and continuing to participate in smaller pop-up vaccination efforts in partnership with the city as those opportunities arise. From our experience, patients are more likely to follow medical advice when it comes from a trusted source like their long-time primary care provider.
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Grant Recipient
Metropolitan Family Services
A renewal of general operating support is sought for Metropolitan Family Services and its Chicago Teen Food Literacy Program, one of the programs run by Altgeld Youth Leaders in the Altgeld Gardens Homes on Chicago’s far south side. Though some aspects of the program have slowed during the Covid-19 Pandemic, the program shifted successfully to a virtual basis and youth have been able to study food insecurity and food justice, issues that particularly intensified this past year, as planned. $30,000 is sought for each of the next two years to meet the increasing program demand and activities that are detailed in the narrative.
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Grant Recipient
NORTHWEST SIDE HOUSING CENTER
Our hyperlocal rapid response work was born out of responding to the Belmont Cragin community's needs around COVID-19. Our hyperlocal work is rooted in racial and health equity that leads to improved access to COVID-19 vaccinations and testing, health education, and holistic wraparound support services for community members. To date we have vaccinated over 11,000 community residents and through this work we aim to continue vaccinating residents through a Rapid Response Street Outreach Team.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Sun-Times
The Sun-Times, Illinois' second-largest newspaper, is seeking continued financial support to fund salaries and benefits for two reporters. One of these journalists, Elvia Malagón, will keep on reporting on social justice issues, with a focus on the economic disparities between Black and Brown residents and whites in our city and region. The second reporter, Brett Chase, will continue covering environmental, planning and development issues, with a focus on environmental racism. The Sun-Times' reporting will shine a spotlight on these issues, which have traditionally lacked coverage. The reporters' work will note their content is made possible through a grant from the Community Trust and will be free to access for online readers.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Rehabilitation Network
The Appraisal Equity Project seeks to establish programmatic and policy remedies for decades of racist policies which have undervalued properties in Latino and Black communities. This undervaluation has resulted in lack of wealth, blocked pathways to small business initiation and equity for other purposes, and overall disinvestment which has led to blight and vacancy in some neighborhoods. Redress for these systemic policy failures is necessary for Chicago to reach its full potential as a City with thriving neighborhoods marked by housing stability for all residents. Community organizations, nonprofit development corporations, and advocates have a shared understanding of racist market dynamics and are ready to work for meaningful change.
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Grant Recipient
INNER VOICE INCORPORATED
Inner Voice respectfully requests renewal of its $60,000 general operating grant from the Chicago Community Trust which was instrumental in moving Inner Voice forward on its path toward converting from paper-based case management to an online system, development of a Workforce Solutions Division and enhancing onboarding for new employees. The grant also provided a much-needed safety net that covered unanticipated costs. As the pandemic wanes, so does emergency funding available from government/private sources. While demand for PPE has diminished, the need for Inner Voice’s services will continue to increase as the impact of the pandemic and the new federal administration unfolds, making general operating funds more critical than ever.
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Grant Recipient
Firebird Community Arts
Firebird Community Arts (FCA) uses the healing practices of glassblowing and ceramics to aid in the trauma recovery of participants impacted by individual or collective trauma, serving primarily youth between the ages of 6 and 24. FCA, in partnership with violence intervention organization Healing Hurt People-Chicago, has excelled at providing support for those facing acute trauma. Now, FCA is developing programs for participants in other phases of their lives -- those who have moved beyond their acute trauma but still need support, as well as younger individuals who may not yet be caught in a cycle of violence and can be mentored by older participants.