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. Today, that means confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation
The Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation (i.c.stars) requests $300,000 across two years from Bridges to Brighter Futures to fund our Chicago program implementation. These funds will support our 4-month hybrid technology job skills training, resulting in thriving wage jobs, and our 24-month residency program, where participants receive continued case management, career advising, and professional skills development while working in the tech sector and assessing our cutting-edge curriculum and skill assessments. i.c.stars' vision is to break barriers and create transformational opportunities for one million untapped learners and leaders to reach and advocate for economic freedom and generational wealth by 2030. The support of the Bridges to Brighter Futures will ensure i.c.stars has a direct impact on our participants and an indirect impact on all the lives they touch in their families, workplaces, and neighborhoods.
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Grant Recipient
Centro De Trabajadores Unidos United Workers Center
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Women in Trades
Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT) requests a Middle Skills Grant of $150,000 from the Bridges to Brighter Futures Fund to support advancing women in the construction trades. Founded in 1981 and a provider of pre-apprenticeship training since 1987, CWIT has placed thousands of women, particularly women of color, in the construction trades. CWIT offers three different workforce development programs at no cost to participants. Two focus on bridging women to construction apprenticeship programs, including the 12- week/180-hour Technical Opportunities Program (offered during after-work evening hours since 1987) and the 10-week/280-hour Women Build Illinois Program (offered during daytime with stipends since 2022), both certified by North American Building Trades Unions (NABTU). The 10-week/280-hour Women in Welding Program (established in 2014), which includes daytime beginning classes and evening advanced skills open shops, builds skills in all welding processes (MIG, Stick, and TIG) and metal working processes (cutting, bending, and finishing), which leads to American Welding Society Certification that is in demand across many sectors of the economy. Our training provides the math and workplace readiness instruction, strength training, and the hands-on exposure needed to become an electrician, plumber, sprinkler fitter, bricklayer, laborer, pipefitter, sheet metal worker, painter, drywall finisher, millwright, and welder. Job placement and retention at a living wage that advances to building wealth is our goal. The primary focus of CWIT's training programs is placement into a construction trades apprenticeship program, which, on average, offer first year apprentices a wage of $22 per hour. Some programs, such as the ironworkers and laborers, start apprentices at wages exceeding $25 per hour, but, in general, a new apprentice would not be expected to achieve this goal until the second year of their program. CWIT's training programs are designed to prepare women to be competitive applicants for these programs, and funds from the Middle Skills grant will continue to support the expansion of the agency's workforce development team, which both facilitates placements of graduates into apprenticeship and other nontraditional jobs and provides an array of retention services including regular follow up, re-placement assistance for unemployed tradeswomen, career and leadership development workshops, support for advanced certifications, provision of barrier reduction funds, connection with tradeswomen mentors, and staffing for women's committees and the Tradeswomen's Council. Specifically, a Middle Skills Grant would support: 1. Placement in apprenticeship/Nontraditional Employment - In FY '24, the program placed 70 participants in apprenticeship and 89 graduates and unemployed tradeswomen in construction and other nontraditional jobs, impacting 159 women. This work, which includes everything from application assistance for new graduates to re-placement assistance for experienced tradeswomen, is critical to launching women's careers in the industry and helping them to sustain the consistent employment needed to retain and advance in the industry. Under this initiative, the agency was able to hire a dedicated retention specialist with the goal of connecting greater numbers of women to opportunity. 2. Barrier Reduction - 25% of the grant will be used to provide direct support to women transitioning to apprenticeship or returning to employment. Common needs include transportation assistance, childcare, union application, initiation, tool and book fees, and stipends for the unpaid full-time pre job programs required by many apprenticeship programs. 3. Career Advancement and Leadership Development Workshops - To support women in the building the skills they need to advance into leadership roles on the job and in the union, CWIT is proposing to offer a range of workshops in partnership with the Tradeswomen's Council. The addition of the retention specialist in August 2024 greatly improves the agency's capacity to expand this work which, in the coming year, will minimally include mental health awareness, know your rights, "Stepping up to Foreman", public speaking, organizing, business development, and home inspection. This list will be expanded based on the outcome of a planning meeting scheduled for later this month (September 2024). 4. Additional Skills & Certifications - In the construction trades, having the right certifications can open doors to a greater range of work and advancement opportunities. To eliminate the barrier of cost, CWIT is proposing to dedicate $10,000 to cover fees associated with a range of industry certifications. In the past year, this has included certifications/licenses in OSHA-500, welding inspection, CDL and backflow. Again, the recent addition of retention specialist will greatly expand the program's capacity to administer the fund and connect tradeswomen to training providers. 5. Harassment Prevention - As women's numbers have grown in the industry, so too have the incidents of harassment, and a priority for the coming year is to improve its internal capacity to support and guide tradeswomen experiencing harassment on the job while providing contractors with the tools and technical assistance to ensure safe and equitable worksites for women and other under-represented workers. To accomplish this goal, CWIT is contracting with Brave Path Strategy to co-create a trauma-informed protocol for CWIT frontline staff and leadership to follow when assisting women with harassment complaints and develop and deliver a comprehensive training to support staff and tradeswomen leaders in understanding the societal factors contributing to workplace harassment and the trauma-informed practices that help recover from harassment's impact. In addition, Brave Path Strategy is working with staff, tradeswomen, contractors and unions to create a gold standard harassment prevention policy tailored to the construction trades.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance
During year 1 of our program, CAFHA, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, and NHS built a new program, as part of the 3C initiative, from the ground up. The HCV Homeowner Mentor Program, was designed by and for housing choice voucher holders. Homeowner Mentors are housing choice voucher holders who have the lived experience of using a voucher to purchase a home of their own. They serve as guides for prospective homeowners and provide one-on-one support throughout the homebuying process by working with their housing counselor counterparts to help participants meet program requirements and set personal goals. An additional component of this program was the establishment of a Homeowner Club for Housing Choice Voucher Homeowners to offer peer support, tips, and resources on an ongoing basis. The Club is a place for HCV Homeowners to access trusted resources and recommendations for everything from grant programs and free homeowner resources, to home maintenance and reliable and affordable contractors for home repairs. For our year 2 of the program, we will continue our main services of mentorship and building up the Homeowner Club, all while creating greater efficiencies and nimbleness into the program design. Year 1 was defined by building and learning; we envision Year 2 as a time for deepening and expanding our impact.
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Grant Recipient
SPANISH COALITION FOR HOUSING
The 3C Buyer Pipeline Collaborative seeks to achieve the goal of providing individuals and families (existing residents) the opportunity to become homeowners in Humboldt Park and East Garfield Park, The Collaborative comes together to do three main things: marketing and outreach to prospective homebuyers to engage, inform and connect resources and opportunities available for affordable and sustainable homeownership through 3C, pair the prospective homebuyers with a HUD-Certified housing counselor to provide full housing counseling, homebuyer education and financial coaching services to prepare the homebuyer for success and long term sustainability, and work with the client through purchase and closing on their home. These efforts will target existing residents within these two target communities with household income of 80-120% Area Median Income (AMI). At the end of this 12-month renewal grant period, the Collaborative will have created a pipeline of 160 households counseled and provided homebuyer education and counseling in the targeted zip codes within the 80-120% AMI range of the 160 households counseled 100 households will achieve mortgage ready status, and 25 3C homes or supported inventory purchased. 160 households counseled reflects the overall target AMI pipeline of which outreach partner Breakthrough Urban Ministries will provide 53 referrals within the targeted 80-120% AMI as a subset of the over 160 client pipeline. The three partner organizations consist of two HUD-Certified nonprofit housing counseling organizations, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS) and Spanish Coalition for Housing (SCH), and local neighborhood based nonprofit Breakthrough Urban Ministries (Breakthrough). SCH will continue to serve as fiscal sponsor. 3C investment from the Chicago Community Trust (CCT) and JP Morgan Chase (JPMC) allows collaborative partners to augment service delivery to provide hyper-local outreach, HUD certified housing counseling and homebuyer education services to key community areas of Humboldt Park and East Garfield; mitigate displacement from gentrification and allow opportunities for affordable, accessible, and sustainable homeownership for existing residents while providing opportunity for generational wealth building.
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Grant Recipient
Carole Robertson Center for Learning
The Carole Robertson Center for Learning (the Center) seeks support for our TransformED, apprenticeship model that allows us to recruit, train, and provide educational and credentialing opportunities to individuals from the communities we serve. TransformED addresses both a need for qualified employees within the early childhood sector, and a need for employment and education opportunities for Chicago residents. By addressing the needs of both families and the workforce in tandem, the Center promotes socioeconomic mobility across multiple generations within our communities, while also providing our youngest learners with high-quality, culturally responsive teachers and support staff. Grant funding will enable us to continue offering this initiative as well as pursue expansion of the model to the youth development sector.
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Grant Recipient
LiftUp Communities
This project grant will support the employer practice innovation efforts of the LiftUp platform, comprised of LiftUp Communities NFP and LiftUp Enterprises for-profit MBE-certified social enterprise, specifically to: 1.) fortify our ability to pilot, iterate, and scale our suite of employee benefits and wrap-around services to accelerate the stability and mobility of low-wage workers and their families and social fabric, 2.) launch LiftUp Advice to formally codify insights from our management approach grounded by dignity-based operating principles, that demonstrate improved growth, profitability, and scalability of social enterprises, and 3.) aid working capital needs and directly impact our ability to unlock our Benefit Chicago $750,000 credit enhancement joining multiple sources including MacArthur and McCormick Foundation that believe in testing and scaling our dignity-based employment model.
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Grant Recipient
North Lawndale Employment Network
North Lawndale Employment Network is requesting an additional $225,000 from We Rise Together to retire its remaining debt and loan with IFF. NLEN previously received $495,000 as part of the first cohort of We Rise Together grantees, which significantly contributed to the successful completion of our new 20,000-square-foot Workforce Campus at 1111 S. Homan Ave. This state-of-the-art campus now serves as a thriving community hub, providing workforce development, financial literacy, and digital skills programs. It also hosts NLEN’s social enterprises, including Sweet Beginnings LLC and the Beelove Café, alongside a community event space, pop-up retail for local entrepreneurs, and a Wintrust Bank branch. Since moving into the campus, all programs and activities have been thriving, with the campus serving over 1,100 individuals annually. The new funds will ensure the full repayment of NLEN's construction loan with IFF, allowing us to close this final financial gap and continue our mission without debt constraints. Our goal remains aligned with reducing North Lawndale's unemployment rate by 10% by 2027 and contributing to the broader revitalization of the community through critical job training and economic development initiatives.