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.
Explore Our Discretionary Grants
Showing 1311–1318 of 4394 results
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Grant Recipient
Corporation For Supportive Housing
CSH will continue to advance our efforts to connect individuals to housing solutions that break the cycle of chronic homelessness. Specifically, we will: 1) Continue expanding our work with the Chicago/Cook Co. Flexible Housing Pool (FHP)—a coordinated body that is re-orienting the crisis response system by funding supportive housing for people with complex health needs and cycling through homelessness and costly health crisis services. For this grant period, our priorities will focus on engaging new sectors as Investors, increasing the amount of money invested in the FHP, and using project data that has been evaluated to better refine the FHP’s marketing pitch to primarily target MCOs. 2) Continue working to improve the IL Justice System’s process for reentry of returning citizens at risk of homelessness through a robust quality improvement effort surrounding housing placement, as well as improved standards for transitional housing—key steps in ensuring all returning citizens are connected to safe, stable housing upon exiting prison. For this grant period, our priorities will focus on providing training on the Housing Needs Assessment to IL Dept. of Corrections (IDOC) staff and transitional housing providers, as well as engaging with key stakeholder groups, in particular the IL Reentry Council’s Housing Workgroup, related to: 1) expanding the knowledge of and availability of alternative housing and services options, outside of recovery housing, and 2) strategizing about how to connect high-need reentry groups to housing. CSH is also working to fundraise for a reentry housing demonstration project with the FHP in order to build evidence for the effectiveness of paying for supportive housing to reduce recidivism and increase stability and opportunities for community members coming home.
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Grant Recipient
ILLINOIS PUBLIC HEALTH INSTITUTE
IPHI proposes to work with partners in the Alliance for Health Equity and CHHRGE to increase engagement of health leaders to address evictions and support more affordable housing in communities across Chicago and Cook County. Covid-19 has highlighted the intersections of health and housing inequities rooted in structural racism, and Covid-19 has also demonstrated that community orgs in Black and Latinx communities across the County are at the forefront of innovative solutions that bridge community development and health. We propose to build on our existing cross-sector work to strengthen partnerships between health stakeholders, local community development orgs and housing and legal experts to support effective advocacy and systems change.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Public Media Inc
Chicago Public Media is committed to serving the public as a trusted, independent source of news and information that makes our region and our democracy stronger. We have always believed that robust local journalism is at the heart of a well-functioning society, and now more than ever, we are committed to serving our region with award-winning coverage of local, national, and international news that connects Chicagoans to each other — and to the world. With the Trust’s investment of $150,000, we will amplify the public conversation by telling the stories that matter; stories that provoke thought, entertain, capture emotion and inspire action. Chicago Public Media shares in the Trust’s desire to connect residents to one another and amplify authentic community narratives. Underpinning all of Chicago Public Media’s work is a theory of change and intended impact centered around empathy: We aim to create a more informed, connected, and empathetic Chicagoland. Our process of identifying a topic for investigation, reporting, and engaging the community is interconnected by design. With intentional community engagement throughout the process, we are more aware of the needs of our community and better positioned to accurately reflect the lived experiences of Chicagoans. As a trusted, independent source of news and information, we leverage our strengths in investigative and enterprise journalism to shine a light on the consequential issues affecting local communities and empower individuals to make informed decisions and advance what’s important to them. In an annual audience survey, we asked our audience members what, if any, actions they have taken as a result of hearing or reading a WBEZ story. We found that 73% of our audience felt they were more informed when they voted, 69% reconsidered or broadened their perspective on an issue, 49% were inspired to take a more active role in their community, and 46% became involved with a local or national cause. These results demonstrate that inclusive storytelling can serve as a pathway toward understanding and that audio storytelling, in particular, has a unique power to connect people, and in many cases, move people to take action. In the coming year, WBEZ will deliver more impactful journalism for the people of Chicago. Our human-centered, solutions-oriented approach to local journalism will shine a light on deep challenges and systemic inequities to effect positive change. Our strategy, approved by Chicago Public Media’s Board of Directors in June 2021, is to invest in daily journalism and build addressable direct relationships via digital platforms to build daily habits and grow the diversity and engagement of our audience. To deliver on our strategy, we have identified priorities across four pillars: Content, Audience Growth, Funding, and People and Culture. Specifically, we seek to: Invest in our journalism to build a compelling daily news product that focuses on the Chicago region, builds daily habits, and earns the trust of our audience. Build direct addressable relationships through digital platforms, converting one-time listeners to email subscribers and mobile app users to increase diversity, frequency, duration, and support among our audience. Fueled by support from our community and generous philanthropic partners, we nourish the public conversation by telling the stories that matter—stories that provoke thought, entertain, capture emotion, and inspire action. With your continued support in the coming year, we will preserve and strengthen that public service mission for our audience today and in the future.
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Grant Recipient
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
Support from The Chicago Community Trust will support AIDS Foundation Chicago’s (AFC) work to protect and advance access to high-quality healthcare for people living with or vulnerable to HIV and other chronic conditions, particularly centering on Black and Latinx communities who are disproportionately impacted by chronic conditions. In order to achieve such, AFC staff will: 1) monitor and respond to threats to health reform and access to care; 2) advocate for a state budget that ensures sufficient and equitable resources for people living with HIV; 3) monitor discriminatory practices among health insurance plans and advocate as needed; and 4) advocate for policies within the Illinois Healthcare Feasibility Study that increase affordability and accessibility for AFC’s focus populations.
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Grant Recipient
Northeastern Illinois University
Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) seeks support to increase the capacity of its Afghan (Refugee) Transition Program to serve the academic and non-academic needs of refugee students impacted by humanitarian crises. While the University Board of Trustees approved supporting up to 17 qualified Afghan evacuees who have settled in the Chicago area with tuition and housing waivers, these students have a host of other needs that must be met if they are to begin to heal and lead normal lives while pursuing an education at NEIU.
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Grant Recipient
Illinois Public Interest Research Group Education Fund
With the support of the Chicago Community Trust, Illinois PIRG Education Fund and allies made progress in strengthening consumer and wealth-building coalitions this year, and through that, winning results. As we will detail further, this past year brought a shift in priorities, as our EITC coalition deprioritized unpaid caregiving and the state debated a massive energy bill. The coming year presents exciting opportunities to defend and build upon our progress. We plan to continue to add value to shared efforts, launch new initiatives, and strengthen partnerships for longer term success. Partnerships ground our work in the lived experience of those most impacted and are crucial to winning and defending reforms. Our current priorities include fighting for affordable utilities, defending consumers in the insurance and financial marketplaces, and building long term support for supporting valuable non-wage work.
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Grant Recipient
The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
UIC School of Public Health is grateful for the opportunity to apply for support from The Chicago Community Trust to strengthen the capacity of the Population Health Analytics, Metrics, and Evaluation (PHAME) Center to address the lack of access to health data across Cook County. Specifically, we are requesting support to continue data collection for a Healthy Cook County Survey; expand, improve, and maintain the Cook County Health Atlas; and assess accuracy and biases associated with different approaches to estimating the prevalence of chronic health conditions throughout Cook County. Continuation of the survey would provide municipal-level data for the 100 plus indicators within the Atlas, including income, access to care, quality of care, chronic diseases, health behaviors, and diet and exercise. These indicators and measures would be available at various geospatial levels, for example, census tract, Suburban Cook County (SCC), the CCDPH district, and Commissioner districts. The data would be weighted so it could be combined with data for the City of Chicago as well. Through this effort, we will have comprehensive local level data for all six million Cook County residents. As part of our request to The Trust, we are asking for support to help sustain the work of the Cook County Health Atlas beyond the first year, as well as expand its functionality and identify and incorporate additional data. With these funds, the Cook County Health Atlas will include data from two years. This project is led by the PHAME Center, in partnership with the Cook County Department of Public Health; Metopio, a Chicago-based analytics and visualization software platform; and CAPriCORN, a patient-centered outcomes research network in Chicago. The core mission of the PHAME Center is to democratize data for population health through its four pillars of technology, data outreach, community engagement, and education & policy. One of the ways this mission is accomplished is through the PHAME Center’s management of the Chicago Health Atlas, a free community health data resource that residents, community organizations and public health stakeholders can use to easily search, analyze, and download neighborhood-level health data for Chicago’s 77 community areas. The PHAME Center is located within the UIC School of Public Health and is led by Dr. Sanjib Basu and Dr. Sage Kim, faculty members who have been leaders in democratizing data for public health, meaningful critical public health indicators, data analytics, and data visualization projects.
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Grant Recipient
South Shore Chamber Community Development Corporation
The South Shore Chamber CDC NDI development project that includes the acquisition and renovation of a commercial property on 71st Street.